Once in Golconda: A True Drama of Wall Street 19201938

Once in Golconda In this book, John Brookswho was one of the most elegant of all business writersperfectly catches the flavor of one of historys bestknown financial dramas: the 1929 crash and its aftershocks. Its packed with parallels and parables for the modern reader. From the Foreword by Richard Lambert EditorinChief, The Financial Times Once in Golconda is a dramatic chronicle of the breathtaking rise, devastating fall, and painstaking rebirth of Wall Street in the years between the wars. Focusing on the lives and fortunes of some of the eras most memorable traders, bankers, boosters, and frauds, John Brooks brings to vivid life all the ruthlessness, greed, and reckless euphoria of the 20s bull market, the desperation of the days leading up to the crash of 29, and the bitterness of the years that followed. Praise for Once in Golconda A fastmoving, sophisticated account.embracing the stockmarket boom of the twenties, the crash of 1929, the Depression, and the coming of the New Deal. Its leitmotif is the truly tragic personal history of Richard Whitney, the aristocrat Morgan broker and head of the Stock Exchange, who ended up in Sing Sing. Edmund Wilson, writing in the New Yorker As Mr. Brooks tells this tale of dishonor, desperation, and the fall of the mighty, it takes on overtones of Greek tragedy, a king brought down by pride. Whitneys sordid history has been told before..But in Mr. Brookss hands, the drama becomes freshly shocking. Wall Street Journal Its all there in Once in Golcondathe avarice of an era that favored the rich; and the later anguish of myriads of speculators doomed by a bloated market, easy credit, and their own cupidity and stupidity. Saturday Review