Dark Genius of Wall Street: The Misunderstood Life of Jay Gould, King of the Robber Barons

by Edward J. Renehan Jr.

Overview

Though reviled for more than a century as Wall Street's greatest villain, Jay Gould was in fact its most original creative genius. Gould was the robber baron's robber baron, the most astute financial and business strategist of his time and also the most widely hated. In Dark Genius of Wall Street, acclaimed biographer Edward J. Renehan, Jr., combines lively anecdotes with the rich social tapestry of the Gilded Age to paint the portrait of the most talented financial buccaneer of his generation -- and one of the inventors of modern business.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780786722310
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	07/31/2008
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	1,005,986
File size:	815 KB

About the Author

Edward J. Renehan Jr.'s books include Dark Genius of Wall Street, The Kennedys at War, The Lion's Pride, The Secret Six, and John Burroughs: An American Naturalist. He has given talks and lectures throughout the Northeast and has appeared on the History Channel, C-SPAN, PBS's American Experience, and numerous other broadcasts. He lives in Rhode Island.

Editorial Reviews

It's probably too strong to say the country was built by rogues. But it's not entirely wrong. Dark Genius of Wall Street may not revive Gould's reputation, but it is a useful reminder of an eternal truth.
— The New York Times

Joseph Nocera

In the late 19th century, strong and well-moneyed families such as the Morgans and the Vanderbilts controlled the fortunes of Wall Street and the emerging industries. Renehan, author of splendid biographies of the Kennedys, Theodore Roosevelt and the naturalist John Burroughs, turns in a masterful glance at the social history of the Gilded Age as well as a brilliant biography of Gould, who outfoxed many of these other wealthy industrialists to win fame and fortune. Although his early work as a surveyor and a tanner did not bring Gould much wealth, he learned to engage in shrewd business practices that would eventually allow him to gain some dominance in the tanning industry. Wall Street and the newly emerging rail industries soon attracted his financial eye, and he turned his full attention to them. While he initially dabbled at the edges of the stock market, he picked up enough financial savvy to engineer a scheme to corner the gold market in 1869 and cause the infamous Black Friday frenzy. Renehan deftly chronicles Gould's canny financial successes in the acquisitions of the Erie, the Union and Pacific, and the Atlantic and Pacific railroads as well as the emerging telegraph industry. Maligned by his competitors and the media as an unscrupulous businessman, Gould never achieved the fame and status of Cornelius Vanderbilt or J.P. Morgan. Yet, as Renehan points out so gracefully, Gould was simply an ambitious financier in an ambitious time before the existence of regulations that his own financial deals helped create. Renehan's sumptuous prose and his dazzling research and style provide a window into Gould's ambitions and offer a first-rate social history of the financial workings of his time. (July) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Jay Gould has been commonly regarded as the biggest robber of the robber barons, a man whose only motivation was to make money. He dominated the railroad and telegraph systems-the leading technologies of the time-and invented ways to manipulate the stock market. Some of his methods were made obsolete by the modern stock market, some were made illegal when the Securities and Exchange Commission was established, and some are still practiced today. Renehan (The Kennedys at War) maintains that Gould was not the marauding financial monster that history portrays. He reminds us that Gould's enemies were only too happy to provide grist for the anti-Gould mill, a situation Gould ignored to his own detriment. He also contradicts charges that Gould took no interest in his companies by detailing Gould's personal management of his railroad business, and he recounts Gould's philanthropy to his employees, his community, and his church-all undertaken anonymously. Eminently readable, this book takes us into the world of the Gilded Age and makes the case that history has not given Gould a fair shake. Recommended for large public libraries and academic libraries collecting in this period.-Grant A. Fredericksen, Illinois Prairie Dist. P.L., Metamora Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

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