High Financier: The Lives and Time of Siegmund Warburg

by Niall Ferguson

Overview

From the bestselling author of The Ascent of Money and The Square and the Tower

"Prodigiously researched but also splendidly written-clear and vivid and precise." —The Wall Street Journal

Drawing on more than ten thousand hitherto unavailable letters and diary entries, bestselling author Niall Ferguson tells the story of Siegmund Warburg, a complex man who was as much a psychologist, a politician, and an actor-manager as a banker. An obsessive perfectionist with an aversion to excessive risk, Warburg-and the S. G. Warburg firm-adopted a financial philosophy that was the antithesis of the debt-fueled, algorithm-driven banking of our time. In High Financier, Niall Ferguson recaptures the meticulous business methods and strict ethical code that set Warburg apart from the mere speculators and traders who inhabit today's financial world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780143119401
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	06/28/2011
Pages:	592
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.30(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Niall Ferguson is one of the world's most renowned historians. He is the author of Paper and Iron, The House of Rothschild, The Pity of War, The Cash Nexus, Empire, Colossus, The War of the World, The Ascent of Money, High Financier, Civilization, The Great Degeneration, Kissinger, 1923-1968: The Idealist, and The Square and the Tower. He is Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a Visiting Professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing. His many awards include the Benjamin Franklin Prize for Public Service (2010), the Hayek Prize for Lifetime Achievement (2012) and the Ludwig Erhard Prize for Economic Journalism (2013).

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Ferguson brings great authority to this account.... [He] is a talented writer, capable of grace and insight, but it is his ability as a historian that shows most strongly in High Financier. —-Washington Post

Editorial Reviews

Siegmund Warburg (1902-1982), scion of a Jewish banking dynasty, fled Nazi Germany to London, where he became a leading banker and an informal economic adviser to prime ministers—but his importance doesn’t shine through this unfocused biography. Financial historian Ferguson (The Ascent of Money) styles him a financial innovator (he engineered Britain’s first hostile takeover), a pioneer of European economic integration (he helped invent the Eurobond), a “prophet of globalization,” a paragon of fiscal rectitude whose principles could have helped us avoid the current economic mess, and a deep thinker about international affairs. Unfortunately, Ferguson doesn’t make a compelling argument for his subject’s significance. Laymen will find his sketchy treatment of Warburg’s feats of “high finance” rather opaque and his case for Warburg the humanist and intellectual weak (and undermined by his subject’s obsession with handwriting analysis). Ferguson uses Warburg’s life as a window onto European unification and Britain’s postwar economic malaise, but his account, which is constantly distracted by deal making and office politics at Warburg’s banking partnership, is too unsystematic to do these topics justice. The view from Warburg’s lofty perch doesn’t make for a discerning perspective on the world around him. (July)

Publishers Weekly

"Ferguson brings great authority to this account.... [He] is a talented writer, capable of grace and insight, but it is his ability as a historian that shows most strongly in High Financier. ---Washington Post

From the Publisher

This lengthy biography of international financier Siegmund Warburg offers a unique view of history from 1930 to 1980 as seen through the filter of banking and finance. Biographer Ferguson focuses mainly on Warburg's development as a financier, his rise to prominence and worldwide influence, and his aspirations to join England, the U.S., and Western Europe in a mutually beneficial economic partnership. James Langton employs a clear, clipped voice for much of the narration, which provides the crisp pacing the text lacks. His attempts at accents for quoted passages from Warburg and others, however, sound awkward and artificial. Still, this is a well-written, broadly sourced look at a brilliant financier. M.O.B. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine

NOVEMBER 2010 - AudioFile