My Last Chernow ... Until Grant Comes Out

When I went to get my Hamilton signed by Chernow at Chancellor's Hall, I was impressed to see that many folk in line had copies of Titan or the House of Morgan instead of a book that they could pretend they read given the popularity of the play on Broadway.  I slugged through Titan and really liked it.  Chernow was neutral and the reader could decide for her/himself if she/he liked JD Rock.  Actually, I did.   This was not revisionist history and Rockefeller did what was needed for the country as well as profitable for himself, the latter not diminishing the need and then legality of the former.

Chernow at the lecture last fall detailed how he came to write histories of financial institutions first ... because of his then current employment recording on the Street.  He said he chose The House of Morgan because it was not only a history of USA economic development, but a chronology of a family.  That family pales against the Rockefellers and the book presents a conclusion of the rapacity of Wall Street, even to the current day.

I have a woman on my team at work who used to work at JPM and the complicated work she does for me could not be performed by anyone else in the agency.  When asked if she wanted to read the book, she declined.  I don't think this is because of the lateness under which Morgan came to value the female sex as having brain power, but I hesitate to delve further.

This book is not as strong as Titan because the business eventually loses its identification with its founding family.  By the end of the book, I expected Gordon Gecko to appear,

What I will remember from this book is:  1.  how pitifully happy I am satisfied to be with my returns on my investments and how being a day trader probably wouldn't help anyway; 2.  how for-me-dable, as the French say, the Street is, holding its own against lesser talents in DC and globally; 3. Morgan's involvement in the world wars and all the international ties that interlock with my other by the pound readings this year.

I really think of all the Chernow, this is the weakest I've read and it does not motivate me to read his other financial book.  Waiting for Grant and his blunders into investment will suit me fine.  It might even be more enjoyable than my 1000 piece puzzle of Grant and his generals which my family criticized me for buying a picture of the "wrong" side.  At least we have Stonewall and Lee nutcrackers.