The Death of the Banker - Tapa blanda

De la contraportada

'For the past decade, I have been intrigued by the conundrum of why the storied financial dynasties - the Rothschilds, Morgans, Barings, Warburgs et al. - flared so brilliantly at a certain historic juncture, then fell into eclipse. Why were their historic moments so spectacular but brief?...I take their demise as my starting-point for a panoramic survey of the world of high finance during the past two centruries. For all their majesty, the financial dynasties have been canaries in the coal mine, telling us much about unseen forces at work in the capital markets.' Ron Chernow, from The Death of the Banker

Ron Chernow - author of The House of Morgan and The Warburgs, and the winner of the American National Book Award - transports the reader on a fascinating tour of high finance. In a book packed with splendid anecdotes and lucid analyses, Chernow evokes the heady days when bankers sailed about in yachts as big as battleships, smoked cigars the size of small torpedoes and sparked bitter controvesy because of their sway over government and industry. He shows, too, how reformers mounted a spirited campaign to prize companies loose from their traditional bankers and restore competition to financial markets. In a world criss-crossed by capital flows, the banker will never again exercise such spectacular rule over clients. The mutual fund manager and the small investor have inherited the earth.