10 books like The Hellhound of Wall Street

By Michael Perino,

Here are 10 books that authors have personally recommended if you like The Hellhound of Wall Street. Shepherd is a community of 7,000+ authors sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Where Are the Customers' Yachts? Or a Good Hard Look at Wall Street

Matthew P. Fink Author Of The Unlikely Reformer: Carter Glass and Financial Regulation

From the list on American financial history.

Who am I?

I was always interested in American history and studied at Brown University under an outstanding professor of American economic history, James Blaine Hedges.   During my career at the mutual fund association I often approached issues from an historical perspective. For example:  Why did Congress draft legislation in a particular way?  How would past events likely affect a regulator’s decisions today?  As a lawyer I had been trained to write carefully and precisely.  As a lobbyist I learned the need to pre

Matthew's book list on American financial history

Discover why each book is one of Matthew's favorite books on American financial history .

Why this book?

Although this book was written over 80 years ago it remains the most humorous and educational book ever written about securities investing. While its focus is on the 1920s, it is dead on point today. Only the names have changed. I’ve read this book a number of times. On each occasion, I laugh a lot and learn a lot.

Where Are the Customers' Yachts? Or a Good Hard Look at Wall Street

By Fred Schwed,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Where Are the Customers' Yachts? Or a Good Hard Look at Wall Street as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Once I picked it up I did not put it down until I finished...What Schwed has done is capture fully-in deceptively clean language - the lunacy at the heart of the investment business' - From the Foreword by Michael Lewis, Bestselling author of "Liar's Poker". '...one of the funniest books ever written about Wall Street' - Jane Bryant Quinn, "The Washington Post". 'How great to have a reissue of a hilarious classic that proves the more things change the more they stay the same. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent' - Michael Bloomberg. 'It's amazing how…


The Great Crash 1929

By John Kenneth Galbraith,

Book cover of The Great Crash 1929

Matthew P. Fink Author Of The Unlikely Reformer: Carter Glass and Financial Regulation

From the list on American financial history.

Who am I?

I was always interested in American history and studied at Brown University under an outstanding professor of American economic history, James Blaine Hedges.   During my career at the mutual fund association I often approached issues from an historical perspective. For example:  Why did Congress draft legislation in a particular way?  How would past events likely affect a regulator’s decisions today?  As a lawyer I had been trained to write carefully and precisely.  As a lobbyist I learned the need to pre

Matthew's book list on American financial history

Discover why each book is one of Matthew's favorite books on American financial history .

Why this book?

The book does an outstanding job in describing the people and events that produced the October 1929 stock market crash in a highly entertaining style. Galbraith wrote more like a witty and insightful journalist than the award-winning economist that he was. This is a must-read for anyone who wants to learn about American financial history. The book is a model for writers who want to educate non-experts about public policy issues.

The Great Crash 1929

By John Kenneth Galbraith,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked The Great Crash 1929 as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'One of the most engrossing books I have ever read' Daily Telegraph

John Kenneth Galbraith's now-classic account of the 1929 stock market collapse remains the definitive book on the most disastrous cycle of boom and bust in modern times.

Vividly depicting the causes, effects, aftermath and long-term consequences of financial meltdown, Galbraith also describes the people and the corporations who were affected by the catastrophe. With its depiction of the 'gold-rush fantasy' ingrained in America's psychology, The Great Crash 1929 remains a penetrating study of human greed and folly.


The Lords of Creation

By Frederick Lewis Allen, Mark Crispin Miller (editor),

Book cover of The Lords of Creation: The History of America's 1 Percent

Matthew P. Fink Author Of The Unlikely Reformer: Carter Glass and Financial Regulation

From the list on American financial history.

Who am I?

I was always interested in American history and studied at Brown University under an outstanding professor of American economic history, James Blaine Hedges.   During my career at the mutual fund association I often approached issues from an historical perspective. For example:  Why did Congress draft legislation in a particular way?  How would past events likely affect a regulator’s decisions today?  As a lawyer I had been trained to write carefully and precisely.  As a lobbyist I learned the need to pre

Matthew's book list on American financial history

Discover why each book is one of Matthew's favorite books on American financial history .

Why this book?

Allen reaches back to the post-Civil War Gilded Age to explain the beginnings of massive finance capitalism in the United States. He then goes on to take readers through the roaring 20s, the 1929 Crash, and the New Deal’s first steps at reform, The author is an entertaining writer and fun to read. He tells fascinating stories and does not bore the reader with technical explanations and statistics.

The Lords of Creation

By Frederick Lewis Allen, Mark Crispin Miller (editor),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Lords of Creation as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A "stimulating" account of the capitalists who changed America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, setting the stage for the 1929 crash and Great Depression (Kirkus Reviews).

In the decades following the Civil War, America entered an era of unprecedented corporate expansion, with ultimate financial power in the hands of a few wealthy industrialists who exploited the system for everything it was worth. The Rockefellers, Fords, Morgans, and Vanderbilts were the "lords of creation" who, along with like-minded magnates, controlled the economic destiny of the country, unrestrained by regulations or moral imperatives. Through a combination of foresight, ingenuity,…


Book cover of A Piece of the Action: How the Middle Class Joined the Money Class

Matthew P. Fink Author Of The Unlikely Reformer: Carter Glass and Financial Regulation

From the list on American financial history.

Who am I?

I was always interested in American history and studied at Brown University under an outstanding professor of American economic history, James Blaine Hedges.   During my career at the mutual fund association I often approached issues from an historical perspective. For example:  Why did Congress draft legislation in a particular way?  How would past events likely affect a regulator’s decisions today?  As a lawyer I had been trained to write carefully and precisely.  As a lobbyist I learned the need to pre

Matthew's book list on American financial history

Discover why each book is one of Matthew's favorite books on American financial history .

Why this book?

My previous recommendations describe the rise of American finance capitalism, leading to the roaring 1920s, the 1929 debacle, and reform legislation. A Piece of the Action takes us forward into the post-World War Two period, when middle-class Americans moved from being cautious savers to become borrowers and investors on a massive scale. The author is an experienced journalist who captures these more recent developments in highly readable style.

A Piece of the Action

By Joe Nocera,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Piece of the Action as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Now with a new introduction describing the fallout of America’s consumer credit boom, 1994’s wildly acclaimed bestseller A Piece of the Action tells the story of how millions of middle class Americans went from being savers to borrowers and investors through the invention of credit cards, mutual funds, and IRAs—resulting in profound societal change.

“America began to change on a mid-September day in 1958, when the Bank of America dropped its first 60,000 credit cards on the unassuming city of Fresno, California.” So begins Joe Nocera’s riveting account of one of the most astonishing revolutions in modern American life—what Nocera…


The Big Short

By Michael Lewis,

Book cover of The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine

Robert Kerbeck Author Of RUSE: Lying the American Dream from Hollywood to Wall Street

From the list on cons and scams.

Who am I?

Growing up in the automobile business (my great-grandfather sold horse carriages before cars were invented!), I’ve always been fascinated by salesmen and con artists, and the very thin line that often separates the two. What is a sales pitch, for example, and what is an outright lie? Where does the truth live anymore? Media? Politics? Business? None of the above? It has never been more important to learn the truth, and never has it been harder to find it. And it’s this very issue that is dividing the world. We think the other side has been conned. They think we’ve been conned. One thing’s for sure—someone’s getting conned. And that’s why I love con books! 

Robert's book list on cons and scams

Discover why each book is one of Robert's favorite books on cons and scams .

Why this book?

In my career as a corporate spy, I was able to see and learn many things I wasn’t supposed to. As a result, I saw the makings of what would become the world’s worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, the 2008 Crash. At first, I thought I was the only one, until I read The Big Short. Michael Lewis documents the few oddballs and kooks prescient enough to read the financial tea leaves and see the crash coming. More than that, he shows how Wall Street didn’t care, until it was too late. 

The Big Short

By Michael Lewis,

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked The Big Short as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The real story of the crash began in bizarre feeder markets where the sun doesn't shine and the SEC doesn't dare, or bother, to tread: the bond and real estate derivative markets where geeks invent impenetrable securities to profit from the misery of lower- and middle-class Americans who can't pay their debts. The smart people who understood what was or might be happening were paralyzed by hope and fear; in any case, they weren't talking.

Michael Lewis creates a fresh, character-driven narrative brimming with indignation and dark humor, a fitting sequel to his #1 bestseller Liar's Poker. Out of a…


Crashed

By Adam Tooze,

Book cover of Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World

Joseph Vogl Author Of The Ascendancy of Finance

From the list on the political power of contemporary finance.

Who am I?

How did I – as a scholar of German literature – turn to economic topics? That had a certain inevitability. When I left for Paris in the early nineties, reading traces of anthropological knowledge in literature and aesthetics of the 18th century, I came across economic ideas on almost every page, in natural history, in medicine, in philosophy, in encyclopedias, in the theories of signs and in the teachings of beauty. There was circulation, communication, flows of exchange all over the place, and the Robinsons were the model. This reinforced the impression that the human being was engaged in aligning himself with homo oeconomicus. The question of  modern economics has therefore become unavoidable for me.

Joseph's book list on the political power of contemporary finance

Discover why each book is one of Joseph's favorite books on the political power of contemporary finance .

Why this book?

Focusing on the financial crisis of 2008 Adam Tooze’s book shows the transition from a geopolitical to a geo-economic world order in which the political destiny of old nation states is determined by the needs of international financial industry – including the rearrangement of global governance and the erosion of democracies.

I admire the way in which Adam Tooze demonstrates the entanglement between financial capitalism, crises, and the rise of populist and right-wing movements in Europe and the US.

Crashed

By Adam Tooze,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Crashed as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

WINNER OF THE LIONEL GELBER PRIZE
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2018
ONE OF THE ECONOMIST'S BOOKS OF THE YEAR
A NEW YORK TIMES CRITICS' TOP BOOK

"An intelligent explanation of the mechanisms that produced the crisis and the response to it...One of the great strengths of Tooze's book is to demonstrate the deeply intertwined nature of the European and American financial systems."--The New York Times Book Review

From the prizewinning economic historian and author of Shutdown and The Deluge, an eye-opening reinterpretation of the 2008 economic crisis (and its ten-year aftermath) as a global event that directly…


The Shock Doctrine

By Naomi Klein,

Book cover of The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

Dora Apel Author Of Beautiful Terrible Ruins: Detroit and the Anxiety of Decline

From the list on cities and urban decline.

Who am I?

As I watched abandoned buildings, homes, and factories spread throughout neighborhoods in Detroit while photographers came from everywhere to photograph the ruins, I became fascinated with why we are drawn to ruins, what role such imagery plays in our collective imagination, and how ruins today are different than, say, Greek ruins. I am also interested in the politics behind the ruins and the role of capitalism in creating our declining cities. I have written several books on visual culture and politics, engaging with issues of race, trauma, memory, war, and capitalist globalization.

Dora's book list on cities and urban decline

Discover why each book is one of Dora's favorite books on cities and urban decline .

Why this book?

I found Naomi Klein’s argument that situations of shock and violence are seized upon and exploited by politicians and corporations to enact rapid corporate makeovers and privatize public services to be exactly what happened in Detroit when an “emergency manager” appointed by the governor began privatizing public services to the detriment of the city population. I think everyone who reads Klein’s elegant and persuasive explanation of disaster capitalism will see it happening around them.

The Shock Doctrine

By Naomi Klein,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Shock Doctrine as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Impassioned, hugely informative, wonderfully controversial, and scary as hell' John le Carre

Around the world in Britain, the United States, Asia and the Middle East, there are people with power who are cashing in on chaos; exploiting bloodshed and catastrophe to brutally remake our world in their image. They are the shock doctors.

Exposing these global profiteers, Naomi Klein discovered information and connections that shocked even her about how comprehensively the shock doctors' beliefs now dominate our world - and how this domination has been achieved. Raking in billions out of the tsunami, plundering Russia, exploiting Iraq - this is…


Debt

By David Graeber,

Book cover of Debt: The First 5,000 Years

Thomas Hylland Eriksen Author Of Small Places, Large Issues: An Introduction to Social and Cultural Anthropology

From the list on economic anthropology.

Who am I?

I’m an anthropologist and writer who has published more than fifty books, ranging from novels and essays to academic monographs and textbooks. I am passionate about trying to make the world a slightly better place, and I am convinced that we need to think differently about the good life and the economy in order to get out of the corner we’ve painted ourselves into. Economic anthropology offers alternative perspectives on the world and the human condition. It's far less obscure than it sounds.

Thomas' book list on economic anthropology

Discover why each book is one of Thomas' favorite books on economic anthropology .

Why this book?

Massively researched, superbly written, and vividly debated, this 2011 tour de force by the late David Graeber develops the surprising argument that money is mainly debt. This is how money is a key ingredient in the reproduction of social inequality and some people’s power over others. Everybody knows that being poor is expensive; Graeber shows why, with examples from Mesopotamia to the present day.

Debt

By David Graeber,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked Debt as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The groundbreaking international best-seller that turns everything you think about money, debt, and society on its head—from the “brilliant, deeply original political thinker” David Graeber (Rebecca Solnit, author of Men Explain Things to Me)
 
Before there was money, there was debt. For more than 5,000 years, since the beginnings of the first agrarian empires, humans have used elaborate credit systems to buy and sell goods—that is, long before the invention of coins or cash. It is in this era that we also first encounter a society divided into debtors and creditors—which lives on in full force to this day.

So…


Shutdown

By Adam Tooze,

Book cover of Shutdown: How Covid Shook the World's Economy

Laurie Laybourn-Langton Author Of Planet on Fire: A Manifesto for the Age of Environmental Breakdown

From the list on to help us face up to the environmental crisis.

Who am I?

I research, write and speak about the global environmental emergency and the policies and politics we need to adequately respond. Drawing on a decade of experience in academia, activism, and policymaking, my work explores the leadership needed to transition to more sustainable and equitable societies while contending with the growing destabilisation resulting from the worsening environmental crisis. I’ve worked at a range of leading policy research organisations and universities and have won awards for my work. I’ve got a BSc in physics and an MPhil in economies from the University of Oxford. 

Laurie's book list on to help us face up to the environmental crisis

Discover why each book is one of Laurie's favorite books on to help us face up to the environmental crisis .

Why this book?

How can we make sense of the Covid-19 pandemic? Adam Tooze gives us a clear answer: it is the first crisis of the new era of environmental crisis. My work now focuses on the increasingly destabilizing effects that the crisis will bring into the future and how future leaders can be better ready to carry on the struggle under worsening conditions. The responses of current leaders to the pandemic – some good, many poor – are a key resource to learn from. This book is a first bash at learning the lessons from the pandemic. Into the future, more than anything we need leaders and governments who are capable of freeing us from the freezing embrace of fear in face of seemingly insurmountable odds. 

Shutdown

By Adam Tooze,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Shutdown as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"This book's great service is that it challenges us to consider the ways in which our institutions and systems, and the assumptions, positions and divisions that undergird them, leave us ill prepared for the next crisis."-Robert Rubin, The New York Times Book Review

"Full of valuable insight and telling details, this may well be the best thing to read if you want to know what happened in 2020." --Paul Krugman, New York Review of Books

Deftly weaving finance, politics, business, and the global human experience into one tight narrative, a tour-de-force account of 2020, the year that changed everything--from the…


Book cover of The Mystery of Overend & Gurney: A Financial Scandal in Victorian London

Kevin Dowd Author Of Alchemists of Loss: How Modern Finance and Government Intervention Crashed the Financial System

From the list on financial crises.

Who am I?

I am Kevin Dowd, a professor of finance and economics at Durham University. I co-authored Alchemists of Loss with Bear’s Lair journalist and ex-merchant banker Martin Hutchinson. Our book discusses the cause of the Global Financial Crisis. Looking over this and many other historical booms and busts, the point that jumps out at me is that the lesson man draws from history is that man learns nothing from it. For it is the doom of men (and women) that we forget.

Kevin's book list on financial crises

Discover why each book is one of Kevin's favorite books on financial crises .

Why this book?

A gripping portrait of a Dickensian financial scandal that led to the last English bank run before the run on Northern Rock in 2007. Founded in 1800 and controlled by Quakers, the firm that was to become Overend and Gurney grew to become London’s leading discount house, specialising in the safe business of discounting bills of exchange. In the 1850s, it became more aggressive and was eventually investing depositors’ funds in highly speculative ventures that promised spectacular profits that never materialised. When market conditions became adverse, Overend and Gurney found itself in dire straits. The Bank of England refused to bail it out and Overend and Gurney was run out of business in 1866. Its failure led to a major financial crisis, the ruin of many investors, and the directors being put on trial in the Old Bailey for fraud.

The Mystery of Overend & Gurney

By Geoffrey Elliott,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Mystery of Overend & Gurney as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This is an entertaining and intriguing account portrait of a period in history and a financial event that was the Barings scandal of its day. In May 1866, Overend and Gurney, the City of London's leading discount house - with a turnover second only to that of the Bank of England - suspended all payments and provoked a 'panic without parallel in the financial history of England'. Within three months of the event more than two hundred other companies had collapsed. Overend and Gurney itself had debts equivalent to GBP 1 billion at today's values. Remarkably, Overend and Gurney was…


5 book lists we think you will like!

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