BOOK REVIEW
BY MICHAEL A. MARTORELLI
1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History— And How It Shattered a Nation By Andrew Ross Sorkin Viking, 2025 592 pages
This well-researched book does indeed take the reader“ inside the greatest crash in Wall Street history.” More significantly, it commendably discusses“ how it shattered a nation.” Journalist and author Andrew Ross Sorkin devotes Part I to a compelling account of events from February to December 1929. Then, he makes an insightful contribution to the literature of the crash in Part II that discusses its aftermath from September 1930 to June 1933.
Even at 444 pages of text, this narrative flows smoothly. Each chapter is a series of short descriptions of activity. Most also include brief profiles of various participants in the drama. Sorkin’ s story proceeds chronologically. He begins with the account of J. P. Morgan & Co. senior partner Thomas Lamont’ s February trip to France on the Aquitania. Even while preparing to deal with the problem of German war reparations, Lamont was working on Morgan’ s latest“ friends of the firm” discounted offering of a speculative holding company. The offering was perfectly legal; but it was also representative of the type of underhanded Wall Street business practice which Sorkin explores.
Another early chapter describes the disagreement over the level of interest rates between representatives of the Federal Reserve Board and leading bankers. When lobbying the Board failed to have its desired effect, National City Bank President Charles Mitchell undermined the Fed’ s policy by announcing his intention to freely lend money to all parties. He was intent on blunting a late March stock market decline that was interrupting a period of speculative frenzy.
Sorkin’ s lead-up to the climactic stock market action of late October is compelling. But it is not clear whether the author achieved his goal of learning more than has been previously reported about the feelings and decisions of the story’ s main actors. His 42-page account of the period from October 19 to 29 is as breezily written as any other section. As expected, it does not appear to break any new ground.
The author’ s choices of issues to discuss in Part II are interesting. Without writing specifically about the Great Depression, he succeeds in telling how much the stock market crash affected the public’ s perception of Wall Street as that economic disaster continued to unfold. Bankers and brokers went from being the most revered group of men in the nation to one of the most reviled. More than many other works about the crash, 1929’ s Part II clearly describes that shift. It does so partly by detailing Ferdinand Pecora’ s investigation of Wall Street’ s business tactics and Charles Mitchell’ s trial for income tax evasion.
He also tells how Senator Carter Glass worked on legislation that would“ put Wall Street in its place once and for all.” Even the well-informed reader may be surprised to learn the backstory of the separation of commercial and investment banking contained in the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act. It was not the senator’ s idea, but the contribution of Chase National Bank President Nelson Aldrich. And it was not a widely recommended act of reform but a swipe at the strong market position of J. P. Morgan & Co. by a less successful competitor.
In his Afterword, Sorkin reinforces some important points related to the second part of the book’ s subtitle. Life in America felt different after the crash. That event was destabilizing; it put capitalism under a microscope and it shattered the country’ s trust in both financial professionals and their regulators. He points to the self-serving nature of the club-like New York Stock Exchange, the fragmented and undercapitalized characteristic of the national banking system and the behavior of the relatively new and untested Federal Reserve as important factors that contributed to an event he believes was preventable. One does not have to agree with his commentary on the functions of markets, the lessons of history or the reality of human nature to praise the bulk of his entertaining and worthwhile effort.
Michael A. Martorelli is a Director Emeritus at Fairmount Partners in Radnor, Pennsylvania, and a frequent contributor to Financial History. He received his MA in History from American Military University.
38 FINANCIAL HISTORY | Winter 2026 | www. MoAF. org