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America's Bank
- The Epic Struggle to Create the Federal Reserve
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
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Publisher's summary
A tour de force of historical reportage, America’s Bank illuminates the tumultuous era and remarkable personalities that spurred the unlikely birth of America’s modern central bank, the Federal Reserve. Today, the Fed is the bedrock of the financial landscape, yet the fight to create it was so protracted and divisive that it seems a small miracle that it was ever established.
For nearly a century, America, alone among developed nations, refused to consider any central or organizing agency in its financial system. Americans’ mistrust of big government and of big banks - a legacy of the country’s Jeffersonian, small-government traditions - was so widespread that modernizing reform was deemed impossible. Each bank was left to stand on its own, with no central reserve or lender of last resort. The real-world consequences of this chaotic and provincial system were frequent financial panics, bank runs, money shortages, and depressions.
By the first decade of the 20th century, it had become plain that the outmoded banking system was ill equipped to finance America’s burgeoning industry. But political will for reform was lacking. It took an economic meltdown, a high-level tour of Europe, and - improbably - a conspiratorial effort by vilified captains of Wall Street to overcome popular resistance. Finally, in 1913, Congress conceived a federalist and quintessentially American solution to the conflict that had divided bankers, farmers, populists, and ordinary Americans, and enacted the landmark Federal Reserve Act.
Roger Lowenstein - acclaimed financial journalist and best-selling author of When Genius Failed and The End of Wall Street - tells the drama-laden story of how America created the Federal Reserve, thereby taking its first steps onto the world stage as a global financial power. America’s Bank showcases Lowenstein at his very finest: Illuminating complex financial and political issues with striking clarity, infusing the debates of our past with all the gripping immediacy of today, and painting unforgettable portraits of Gilded Age bankers, presidents, and politicians.
Lowenstein focuses on the four men at the heart of the struggle to create the Federal Reserve. These were Paul Warburg, a refined, German-born financier, recently relocated to New York, who was horrified by the primitive condition of America’s finances; Rhode Island’s Nelson W. Aldrich, the reigning power broker in the US Senate and an archetypal Gilded Age legislator; Carter Glass, the ambitious, if then little-known, Virginia congressman who chaired the House Banking Committee at a crucial moment of political transition; and President Woodrow Wilson, the academician-turned-progressive-politician who forced Glass to reconcile his deep-seated differences with bankers and accept the principle (anathema to southern Democrats) of federal control. Weaving together a raucous era in American politics with a storied financial crisis and intrigue at the highest levels of Washington and Wall Street, Lowenstein brings the beginnings of one of the country’s most crucial institutions to vivid and unforgettable life.
Listeners of this gripping historical narrative will wonder whether they’re listening about 100 years ago or the still-seething conflicts that mark our discussions of banking and politics today.
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Critic reviews
“As Roger Lowenstein tells it in America’s Bank, an illuminating history of the Fed’s unlikely origin story, the central bank represented an ambitious - and not entirely successful - effort to resolve several long-standing tensions that lay at the heart of the American experiment in self-government: East Coast vs. the interior, urban sensibilities vs. rural ones, mercantile vs. agrarian interests, Wall Street vs. Main Street. It is still working out the kinks.” (Washington Post)
“The fun of the book - and its enduring value - lies in the rich details about the cranks, pawns and prophets who jousted with one another in the days of Teddy Roosevelt, William Taft and Woodrow Wilson.” (Forbes)
“Roger Lowenstein tells, vividly and compellingly...the remarkable tale of the politics, disagreements, decisions and crises that culminated in the Federal Reserve Act.... But Lowenstein, the author of several works on economics and finance, builds off it to describe the history of the era, the rise of the Progressive movement, the compromises and machinations that were critical to Congressional passage and the key figures in the drama of creating the Federal Reserve System.” (Robert Rubin, New York Times Book Review)
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Not clear what this book is really about
- By Chris on 07-03-08
By: H. W. Brands
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Lords of Finance
- The Bankers Who Broke the World
- By: Liaquat Ahamed
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 18 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
It is commonly believed that the Great Depression that began in 1929 resulted from a confluence of events beyond any one person's or government's control. In fact, as Liaquat Ahamed reveals, it was the decisions made by a small number of central bankers that were the primary cause of the economic meltdown, the effects of which set the stage for World War II and reverberated for decades.
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interesting insight into interwar period!
- By Toru on 11-27-09
By: Liaquat Ahamed
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Hoover
- An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times
- By: Kenneth Whyte
- Narrated by: Richard Ferrone
- Length: 27 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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The definitive biography of Herbert Hoover, one of the most remarkable Americans of the 20th century - a revisionist account that will forever change the way Americans understand the man, his presidency, and his battle against the Great Depression. A poor orphan who built a fortune, a great humanitarian, a president elected in a landslide and then routed in the next election, arguably the father of both New Deal liberalism and modern conservatism - Herbert Hoover is also one of our least understood presidents.
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What a fascinating story!
- By Dan Ryan on 11-18-17
By: Kenneth Whyte
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Coolidge: An American Enigma
- By: Robert Sobel
- Narrated by: Charles Bice
- Length: 16 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Sobel instead exposes the real Coolidge, whose legacy as the most Jeffersonian of all twentieth-century presidents still reverberates today. Sobel delves into the record to show how Coolidge cut taxes four times, had a budget surplus every year in office, and cut the national debt by a third in a period of unprecedented economic growth.
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A Book Exciting As It's Subject!!!
- By Ted on 08-28-12
By: Robert Sobel
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Nothing to Fear
- FDR's Inner Circle and the Hundred Days That Created Modern America
- By: Adam Cohen
- Narrated by: Norman Dietz
- Length: 14 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Nothing to Fear brings to life a fulcrum moment in American history - the tense, feverish first 100 days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's presidency, when he and his inner circle completely reinvented the role of the federal government.
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Important contribution
- By R.S. on 03-05-09
By: Adam Cohen
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All the Presidents' Bankers
- The Hidden Alliances That Drive American Power
- By: Nomi Prins
- Narrated by: Marguerite Gavin
- Length: 19 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Nomi Prins ushers us into the intimate world of exclusive clubs, vacation spots, and Ivy League universities that binds presidents and financiers. She unravels the multi-generational blood, intermarriage, and protégé relationships that have confined national influence to a privileged cluster of people. This unprecedented history of American power illuminates how financiers have retained their authoritative position through history, swaying presidents regardless of party affiliation.
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You better like history about the elite and rich
- By Victor on 01-12-15
By: Nomi Prins
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American Default
- The Untold Story of FDR, the Supreme Court, and the Battle over Gold
- By: Sebastian Edwards
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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The American economy is strong in large part because nobody believes that America would ever default on its debt. Yet in 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt did just that, when in a bid to pull the country out of depression, he depreciated the US dollar in relation to gold, effectively annulling all debt contracts. American Default is the story of this forgotten chapter in America's history.
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Superb
- By Jean on 12-08-18
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Herbert Hoover
- A Life
- By: Glen Jeansonne
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 16 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Prize-winning historian Glen Jeansonne delves into the life of our most misunderstood president, offering up a surprising new portrait of Herbert Hoover - dismissing previous assumptions and revealing a political Progressive in the mold of Theodore Roosevelt and the most resourceful American since Benjamin Franklin.
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Thought provoking
- By Jean on 10-26-16
By: Glen Jeansonne
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Ways and Means
- Lincoln and His Cabinet and the Financing of the Civil War
- By: Roger Lowenstein
- Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith
- Length: 13 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Upon his election to the presidency, Abraham Lincoln inherited a country in crisis. Even before the Confederacy’s secession, the United States Treasury had run out of money. The government had no authority to raise taxes, no federal bank, no currency. But amid unprecedented troubles Lincoln saw opportunity—the chance to legislate in the centralizing spirit of the “more perfect union” that had first drawn him to politics.
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Perspective that matters - financing the Civil War
- By Edgewater on 07-04-22
By: Roger Lowenstein
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Volcker
- The Triumph of Persistence
- By: William L. Silber
- Narrated by: Ross Douglas
- Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Over the course of nearly half a century, five American presidents - three Democrats and two Republicans - have relied on the financial acumen, and the integrity, of Paul A. Volcker. During his tenure as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, when he battled the Great Inflation of the 1970s, Volcker did nothing less than restore the reputation of an American financial system on the verge of collapse.
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Required Reading for 2022 Economy
- By Marc Uknis on 11-19-22
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The House of Morgan
- An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance
- By: Ron Chernow
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 34 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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A gripping history of banking and the booms and busts that shaped the world on both sides of the Atlantic, The House of Morgan traces the trajectory of the J. P.Morgan empire from its obscure beginnings in Victorian London to the crash of 1987. Ron Chernow paints a fascinating portrait of the private saga of the Morgans and the rarefied world of the American and British elite in which they moved. Based on extensive interviews and access to the family and business archives, The House of Morgan is an investigative masterpiece.
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The construction of the House of Morgan
- By Darwin8u on 10-22-18
By: Ron Chernow
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Act of Congress
- How America's Essential Institution Works, and How It Doesn't
- By: Robert G. Kaiser
- Narrated by: Matthew Josdal
- Length: 19 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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An eye-opening account of how Congress today really works - and doesn’t - that follows the dramatic journey of the sweeping financial reform bill enacted in response to the Great Crash of 2008. The founding fathers expected Congress to be the most important branch of government and gave it the most power. When Congress is broken - as its justifiably dismal approval ratings suggest - so is our democracy.
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insightful, and eye opening.
- By A&K Schneider on 10-21-17
By: Robert G. Kaiser
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America's First Great Depression
- Economic Crisis and Political Disorder After the Panic of 1837
- By: Alasdair Roberts
- Narrated by: Kevin Young
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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For a while, it seemed impossible to lose money on real estate. But then the bubble burst. The financial sector was paralyzed and the economy contracted. State and federal governments struggled to pay their domestic and foreign creditors. Washington was incapable of decisive action. The country seethed with political and social unrest. In America's First Great Depression, Alasdair Roberts describes how the United States dealt with the economic and political crisis that followed the Panic of 1837.
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Excellent Story
- By Timothy on 06-10-13
By: Alasdair Roberts
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The Alchemists
- Three Central Bankers and a World on Fire
- By: Neil Irwin
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 14 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Neil Irwin’s The Alchemists is a gripping account of the most intense exercise in economic crisis management we’ve ever seen, a poker game in which the stakes have run into the trillions of dollars. The book begins in, of all places, Stockholm, Sweden, in the 17th century, where central banking had its rocky birth, and then progresses through a brisk but dazzling tutorial on how the central banker came to exert such vast influence over our world, from its troubled beginnings to the age of Greenspan, bringing the listener into the present with a marvelous handle on how these figures and institutions became what they are.
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Couldn't Listen to this narrator
- By Donald on 07-23-13
By: Neil Irwin
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Liberal leaning nonsense
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Perspective that matters - financing the Civil War
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Life changer
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A former chair of the Federal Reserve explains the transformation of one our most powerful and consequential institutions.
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don't buy, horrible narration
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High school equivalent writing and reading
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The Battle of Bretton Woods
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When turmoil strikes world monetary and financial markets, leaders invariably call for "a new Bretton Woods" to prevent catastrophic economic disorder and defuse political conflict. The name of the remote New Hampshire town where representatives of 44 nations gathered in July 1944, in the midst of the century's second great war, has become shorthand for enlightened globalization.
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Is this a mystery, a history or an economics book?
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Before Bill Gross was known among investors as the Bond King, he was a gambler. In 1966, a fresh college grad, he went to Vegas armed with his net worth ($200) and a knack for counting cards. Ten thousand dollars and countless casino bans later, he was hooked, so he enrolled in business school. The Bond King is the story of how that whiz kid made American finance his casino.
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Lords of Finance
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It is commonly believed that the Great Depression that began in 1929 resulted from a confluence of events beyond any one person's or government's control. In fact, as Liaquat Ahamed reveals, it was the decisions made by a small number of central bankers that were the primary cause of the economic meltdown, the effects of which set the stage for World War II and reverberated for decades.
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interesting insight into interwar period!
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The Rise and Fall of American Growth
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In the century after the Civil War, an economic revolution improved the American standard of living in ways previously unimaginable. Electric lighting, indoor plumbing, home appliances, motor vehicles, air travel, air conditioning, and television transformed households and workplaces. With medical advances, life expectancy between 1870 and 1970 grew from 45 to 72 years. The Rise and Fall of American Growth provides an in-depth account of this momentous era.
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Over-detailed, with no engaging message
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Too Big to Fail
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A real-life thriller about the most tumultuous period in America's financial history by an acclaimed New York Times reporter. Andrew Ross Sorkin delivers the first true, behind-the-scenes, moment-by-moment account of how the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression developed into a global tsunami.
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Best Book About Meltdown
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The Money Men
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A best-selling historian's gripping account of the powerful men who controlled America's financial destiny. From the first days of the United States, a battle raged over money. On one side were the democrats, who wanted cheap money and feared the concentration of financial interests in the hands of a few. On the other were the capitalists who sought the soundness of a national bank and the profits that came with it.
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Not clear what this book is really about
- By Chris on 07-03-08
By: H. W. Brands
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Central Banking 101
- By: Joseph J Wang
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- Length: 4 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Central banking is magic. With a few words, the Fed can lift the stock market out of desperation and catapult it towards euphoric highs. With a few keystrokes, the Fed can conjure up trillions of dollars and fund virtually unlimited Federal spending. And with a few poor decisions, the Fed can plunge the entire world into a recession. The Federal Reserve is one of the most powerful institutions in the world, and also one of the most difficult to understand.
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Great Knowledge & Information
- By Lloyd K. on 09-09-24
By: Joseph J Wang
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Against the Gods
- The Remarkable Story of Risk
- By: Peter L. Bernstein
- Narrated by: Mike Fraser
- Length: 14 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
In this unique exploration of the role of risk in our society, Peter Bernstein argues that the notion of bringing risk under control is one of the central ideas that distinguishes modern times from the distant past. Against the Gods chronicles the remarkable intellectual adventure that liberated humanity from oracles and soothsayers by means of the powerful tools of risk management that are available to us today.
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Glad it finally got here
- By bda31175 on 10-16-21
What listeners say about America's Bank
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
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Performance
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- Philo
- 11-01-15
Just technical and just popular enough
I think Roger Lowenstein has done us a great service with this sober telling of the story. This is one of those segments of history that is complex enough to allow its exploitation by all sorts of crackpots who cherry-pick the story, and until now it has been difficult to respond, due to the lack of a reasonably popular-level book walking through it all. I found the detail, length and editing just right. This book also features brief descriptions of various Fed operations that are understandable. By comparison, I read 'Act of Congress' by Robert G. Kaiser about the Dodd-Frank legislation, and found the latter plodding and not illuminating the personalities or deeper concepts or surrounding history nearly as well as this book does. This book clearly and briskly lights up important events from the Civil War to the 1930s, though it definitely focuses on the first 15 years of the 20th century. And at last Paul Warburg gets his due! I felt here as if I was at the side of many of the characters at their most critical moments, from the conception of the law through its emergence in all the shifting politics of the era. I am astounded that any reasonable legislation comes out of Congress at all, then or now, given the tugging personalities, but stepping back, that is often "a feature, not a bug." There is a fine portrayal of Woodrow Wilson also, and his times. I generally like Robertson Dean as a narrator, but here, I thought his style was a bit flat, meshing with this particular book. But it was certainly competent and acceptable.
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7 people found this helpful
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- JohnDoe
- 09-30-21
Very clearly presented story of the establishmen
of sane banking practices, prevented by the uneducated masses, AGAIN thwarting the establishment of the very institutions that facilated economic progress they so desparately needed.
Same self destructive insanity continues today. Reading this book makes the charges obvious, though those conclusions are left to reader.
I'm so ashamed of my country's penchant for backwardsness as it opposses free upper education, medical/dentalcare, childcare, and food.
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- Andrew R Clay
- 11-24-15
Epic
An epic. Thing that can make history of banking law interesting and readable is pretty amazing.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Hudson Barry
- 02-02-19
Important Story for Americans to Know
Substance/Main Positives
This book is the story of why and how the Federal Reserve came to be. This story is an important one for Americans to have some familiarity with because it lays the groundwork for understanding why our banking system is structured the way it is today (February 2019). Probably not a "must read" because I suspect there are other equally good (or better) books on the topic, but certainly every American who has any interest in why banking is the way it is in America (or anyone who thinks they have a better idea for how it should be) ought to read this book or one that tells the same story.
Drawbacks
The reader is deep-voiced and seems to be forcing an ominous tone much of the time. I understand this may be by design to "go along" with the subject matter, but it just seemed somewhat overdone, and I am not sure the story is really all that ominous. The delivery should be more positive, because after all, the characters struggling "to create the Federal Reserve" (see sub-title) were all striving for legitimately positive reform of the banking system, though some characters went about it in a more conspiratorial way.
Conclusion/Author's Bias
Mr. Lowenstein's bias is not crystal clear to me (maybe that speaks well of his authorship), but the book does present the Federal Reserve as basically good and necessary for America to be the great nation it has been throughout the 20th century. I am not sure I can disagree with that.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Stephen Hoag
- 09-26-18
Same old same old...
Although this is a very well written book in terms of the details it offers about the principals involved in the evolution of the Federal Reserve Act, it gives short shrift to the reasons the public at large felt the way they did. “Big is bad”, isn’t a rationale for thoughtful political arguments being mounted by one of the the major parties in this country for three quarters of a century. What I wanted was a better understanding of the arguments that prevailed at the time. At one point the author characterizes the feeling of the public as antagonistic to a Central Bank, then a few pages later, claims that popular support had rallied around the idea. In the next chapter, the public have changed their minds again. No insight is given to help us understand why the public seems so fickle. I did get a better understanding of the Free silver movement in the late 19th century.
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- Anonymous User
- 12-28-22
Pretty good
History of the events that took form into the fed,
Now we take it for granted but it was Quite a miracle at the start of the 19th century.
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- Jean
- 11-02-15
Important and Intriguing
I heard Lowenstein on the New York Times book review podcast and it sounded interesting. I had just finished “Courage to Act” by Ben S. Bernanke and this book seem to fit right into the topic.
The book starts in 1787 and follows the topic of the need for a Federal Bank. Alexander Hamilton fought for a central bank but many opposed a strong federal government. Lowenstein goes into detail about President Wilson and his fight for the Federal Reserve and how they passed the “Federal Reserve Act of 1913.”
This is a story of politics, disagreements, decisions, including crises that culminated in the Federal Reserve Act. Lowenstein’s account of the financial crises before the establishment of the Fed powerfully demonstrates that it is imperative for the Federal Reserve System to maintain its effectiveness and independence from politics. The author gives us striking portraits of key figures well known and unknown, involved in the creation of the central bank.
The book is well written and well researched. The author writes in an engaging manner that makes dry material interesting.
There are currently a number of reforms being proposed in Congress that would undermine the effectiveness and independence of the Federal Reserve. This is a must read book to fully understand the history and all the issues involved, so one can understand the critical nature of the proposed changes to the Federal Reserve Act. Robertson Dean did a good job narrating the book. The book was not too long at nine and half hours.
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16 people found this helpful
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- ratio91
- 08-14-16
Very well researched, great narrator but lengthy
So far the most compelling in-dept researched book on the topic. A bit to focused on the details of the political process and therefore too lengthy for my taste. The narrator's voice was really pleasant, which kept me going.
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- Faycel K
- 08-14-23
Amazing story and performance
Amazing historical account of the American federal reserve. Well researched and very informative. Great narration as well.
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- Pablo
- 01-05-16
A good account, but easy on the "epic"
A good account of a part of US and world financial history that I didn't know well. Good portraits of Aldridge, Warburg, Andrew, Davidson, Glass, Untermeier, Wilson. A little weaker on Strong and McAdoo, but then again they became more prominent later. Recommendable.
But easy on the Lowenstein-esque attempts at drama. This was a historic bill, no doubt, and there were odds against it, but exaggeration can become hard to bear.
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3 people found this helpful