by John Brooks
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Product Description
Once in Golconda "In this book, John Brooks-who was one of the most elegant of all business writers-perfectly catches the flavor of one of history's best-known financial dramas: the 1929 crash and its aftershocks. It's packed with parallels and parables for the modern reader." -From the Foreword by Richard Lambert Editor-in-Chief, The Financial Times Once in Golconda is a dramatic chronicle of the breathtaking rise, devastating fall, and painstaking rebirth of Wall Street in the years between the wars. Focusing on the lives and fortunes of some of the era's most memorable traders, bankers, boosters, and frauds, John Brooks brings to vivid life all the ruthlessness, greed, and reckless euphoria of the '20s bull market, the desperation of the days leading up to the crash of '29, and the bitterness of the years that followed. Praise for Once in Golconda "A fast-moving, sophisticated account.embracing the stock-market boom of the twenties, the crash of 1929, the Depression, and the coming of the New Deal. Its leitmotif is the truly tragic personal history of Richard Whitney, the aristocrat Morgan broker and head of the Stock Exchange, who ended up in Sing Sing." -Edmund Wilson, writing in the New Yorker "As Mr. Brooks tells this tale of dishonor, desperation, and the fall of the mighty, it takes on overtones of Greek tragedy, a king brought down by pride. Whitney's sordid history has been told before..But in Mr. Brooks's hands, the drama becomes freshly shocking." -Wall Street Journal "It's all there in Once in Golconda-the avarice of an era that favored the rich; and the later anguish of myriads of speculators doomed by a bloated market, easy credit, and their own cupidity and stupidity." -Saturday Review
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Once in Golconda, 2008-11-04
This book was first published in 1969, but remains particularly topical today, in the world of hedge funds and private equity pools. It's all there-- the stock manipulation, the insider trading, the coordinated bear raids and bull pools, the senseless leverage, the lack of regulatory controls, the laissaiz faire Republican administrations, a terrorist attack, the boundless greed and the ruined reputations. Only, it's the 1920's and '30's. History repeats itself. Brooks' account is meticulously researched and the writing flows very easily. Can you believe a corner in the stock of the Stutz Bearcat Company? It happened with ruinous results for everyone involved.I give it to friends in the financial world for their education and amusement, and also as a cautionary tale.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Timeless, and Timely, 2008-09-20
Times may change, but human nature does not. "Once in Golconda" is a play-by-play of the worst financial disaster ever to befall the U.S.-- at least until now. Yet, unfortunately so many of its lessons have faded. Eighty years may have passed since the events described in it took place, but this book reads like living history of the most timely sort-- it covers the first years of the roaring twenties to the last years of the groaning thirties-- and has so many parallels to what's going right now that it's downright eerie.
There are superficial differences of course, we have different characters (They: Charles E. Mitchell, Albert Wiggin, et al-- We: Stanley O'Neal, Richard Fuld, et al.), and we have, of course, developed far more sophisticated ways of circumventing fair standards, decent practices, and common sense. But at their core the greed, the recklessness, and the hubris of then versus now is as similar as one malignant strain of virus to another.
Fast-money, fear; booms, busts; glory, and disgrace are all part of the story line, and believe me it is one that will have you turning pages as fast as any Grisham thriller, while shaking your head that so many of its lessons about free markets, easy credit, and wishful thinking have either been forgotten or forsaken.
After reading John Brooks's brilliant expose, surely no historically knowledgeable Fed head would feed speculation by keeping interest rates recklessly low as Benjamin Strong did in the twenties; or any Congress and President be complicit with or cowed into watering down or repealing hard-won safeguards (Glass Steagall eraser Phil Gramm, anyone...?) by special interests. Just as today, "Once in Golconda" reports industry leaders celebrating economic growth while railing against the onerous, anti-capitalist evils of transparency, oversight, and "anti-competitive" regulation-- all while the bubble they were blowing kept expanding. Then, once it popped, many of those same leaders scurried off, carpetbags bulging with slippery loot, leaving both the markets and the economy shattered.
Everyone should read this book. Maybe then, we could avoid the financial devastation of a casino capitalism that demands socialist-style bailouts. Maybe then people would demand accountability from management, and clarity on how their hard earned retirement funds are being bet, borrowed, and blown. Fat chance.
History is indeed just variations on a theme and "Once in Golconda" shows us how easily we are led not only to march to the same drummer, but, before we know it, right off the same old cliff.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
History with a personal touch..., 2006-11-11
This book brings the Depression to life. The writing is erudite and the author's decision to tell the story through the life of one individual makes it personal, more than a "dry" history. A time that should not be forgotten, a story that should not be forgotten.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Excellent!, 2006-03-05
Once in Golconda is a well-written financial history book. The setting is 1920s and 30s Wall Street. The drama centers around Richard Whitney, who falls from grace like the hero in a Greek tragedy. During the '29 crash, Whitney himself (he was president of the NYSE at the time) strode onto the floor of the exchange and bought U.S. Steel (and other blue chips) to temporarily halt the slide. In the aftermath, Whitney literally stole from widows and orphans and was sent to prison. An excellent example of a financial history book that is not dry and unreadable.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Great book about the 1929 stock market crash..., 2005-11-07
The book really placed you back in that era. The information was like spying on the "old guards" of Wall Street. This book was really a well written and it is hard to believe it was written in 1969. I could not believe how much George Whitney bailed out his brother Richard and how others at the Morgan firm went along with it...I guess old money is generally foolish! Great Book!
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