Once in Golconda

Once in Golconda "In this book, John Brooks-who was one of the most elegant of all business writers-perfectly catches the flavor of one of history's best-known financial dramas: the 1929 crash and its aftershocks. It's packed with parallels and parables for the modern reader." -From the Foreword by Richard Lambert Editor-in-Chief, 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 era's 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 fast-moving, sophisticated account.embracing the stock-market 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. Whitney's sordid history has been told before..But in Mr. Brooks's hands, the drama becomes freshly shocking." -Wall Street Journal "It's all there in Once in Golconda-the 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 ReviewDie 20er und 30er Jahre sind eine unvergeßliche Epoche aus der Geschichte der Wall Street. In diesem faszinierenden Buch erklärt der Autor die Metapher dieser Finanzepoche von Hochkonjunktur und Konkurs: "Golconda, heute eine Ruine, war einmal eine Stadt im Südosten Indiens, wo - der Legende zufolge - jeder reich wurde ....eine ähnliche Legende war mit der Wall Street zwischen den beiden Weltkriegen verknüpft."
"Once in Golconda" analysiert Entstehung und Zerstörung des Reichtums von Richard Whitney, dem Vorstandsvorsitzenden der New Yorker Börse, dessen persönliche Geschichte eng mit den Schwankungen am Aktienmarkt verbunden ist. Der Autor untersucht Dramatik, Rücksichtslosigkeit, Gier und Illusion der 20er und 30er Jahre, die die Wall Street nachhaltig verändert haben. Angefangen beim Wertpapierrecht, das die modernen Märkte beherrscht, bis hin zu den schwärmerischen Visionen der Hausse-Anleger - Brooks zeichnet die zeitlosen Themen der Wall Street nach wie kein anderer. (09/99)
Overture: The Outrage.

Ticker Tyranny.

The Almost Aristocracy.

So Near the Apes.

Things Fall Apart.

Enter the White Knight.

Gold Standard on the Booze.

Ordeal in Washington.

The White Knight Unhorsed.

Rising Action.

Catastrophe.

Denouement.

Acknowledgments.

Sources.

Index.

“ In this, Brooks—who was one of the most elegant of all business writers—perfectly catches the flavor of one of history's best-known financial dramas: the 1929 ceash and its aftershocks. It’s packed with parallels and parables for the modern reader.”
—RICHARD LAMBERT, Editor-in-chief, The Financial Times

Praise for Once in Golconda

“A fast-moving, sophisticated account … embracing the stock-market 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. Whitney’s sordid history has been told before.… But in Mr. Brooks’s hands, the drama becomes freshly shocking.”

—Wall Street Journal

“It’s all there in Once in Golconda: the 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. The book, which is great reading, has a real message, especially for a generation of speculators that know neither the pangs and privations of a depression nor of blue chip stocks that drop fifty points in a single day’s trading.”

—Saturday Review

“Mr. Brooks has convinced me, absolutely, that Richard Whitney ranks in the highest pantheon of American symbols—like Lincoln and Bryan and Melville and Hemingway and Yellow Kid Weft, Buffalo Bill, and Horatio Alger … and even Babe Ruth. In him, the upper-class con crested—and America’s last chance to do it right the first time ended.”

—Harper’s