Every Man a Speculator: A History of Wall Street in American Life

Wall Street is a window into the soul of America and a battleground for a clash of the nation's values. So writes Steve Fraser, author of the epic book Every Man a Speculator. Fraser sets out to chronicle not so much the history of the "Street" itself, but its place in American society. Since the founding of United States, he says, Wall Street has been the place where Americans have wrestled with their beliefs about work and play, democracy and capitalism, gambling and investment, equality and freedom, God and mammon, heroes and villains.

This is an ambitious, fascinating tale peopled with infamous confidence men, cold-hearted fraudsters, and ruined speculators, through whose eyes Fraser tells virtually an alternative history of America. The 721-page book starts with William Duer, the country's original market swindler, who manipulated government bonds after the Revolution and died in debtors' prison. Duer's frauds left a deep suspicion of Wall Street among many of America's Founding Fathers and the general public. That suspicion only intensified, Fraser writes, after the panic of 1873, which Mark Twain satirized in his novel The Gilded Age, and the 1929 crash, after which Wall Street came under public supervision for the first time. After World War II, the Street staged a remarkable turnaround, as its "wise men" became key figures behind the Marshall Plan, NATO, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. Today, despite the dot-com crash and corporate-fraud scandals, Fraser writes that Wall Street has still managed to retain a positive image in America's new "shareholder society." But he concludes on a dark tone expressing concerns about "gathering thunderclouds of world economic disturbance." He warns that any future market crash could plunge the Street back into disgrace while also reviving the political extremism and fascism of the 1930s. Fraser's elegantly written book manages to be both entertaining and thought-provoking. –Alex Roslin