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vcmwDevil Take the Hindmost, by Edward Chancellor, belongs to one of my favorite genres of history - thematic history of one thing/idea over a constrained timeline and a (relatively) limited geographical area. Here the idea is financial speculation and the (relatively) limited geographical area is primarily the United States and the United Kingdom. After initial sections on Roman Republic stock trading and Holland and tulip mania, where other countries than the UK or the US are mentioned it is usually only in the context of financial tradings with those two or in brief but highly amusing asides.
This book is full of absolutely delicious wack-jobbery. I know a lot of people who find economic history dull, but I beg you to reconsider! Even the modern bits are full of delicious oversized weirdness, such as this from the bit on the S&L crisis of the 1980s: "McBirney of Sunbelt Savings, fed his guests at his north Dallas home on lion meat and antelope, while presiding over the festivities dressed as Henry VIII with dry ice billowing around him. . . At another party at his penthouse suite in Las Vegas, McBirney allegedly diverted his bank's clients with an "enthusiastic lesbian romp" while prostitutes performed fellatio on favoured guests." " (pg 274).
I'm always interested in early tidbits about Lloyd's of London in its coffeehouse days, so how pleasant to know that "When Edward Lloyd moved his coffeehouse to Lombard Street in 1691 brokers were underwriting a variety of risks from highway robbery to the "assurance of female chastity." The merchant who took a wager on the outbreak of war, the life expectancy of King William, or the outcome of a siege was more likely to be doing so because he wished to hedge a business risk than because he was consumed with a gaming lust." (pg 43).
Like all but the greatest single topic books, it does suffer from the weakness that, where I know something about the topic and the period, I could wish for more big-picture analysis. Not every book can be The Perfect Red, after all. I would like there to have been more connecting the explanations of speculative bubbles to the policies in re labor, colonialism, and imperialism during the time. I felt this was especially true for the sections that talked about speculative bubbles in Holland during the rise of the Dutch East India Company, in England during the rise of their East India Company, in the United States during periods that I know were periods of colonialist expansion (Mark Twain wrote feelingly on both ridiculous corrupt capitalism and imperialist US expansion, and, y'know, there are connections). But I think pursuing a thesis like that would have radically shifted the audience and weight of what is basically pop economic history for people in the financial sector.
As it is, we do have some choice though understated bits of commentary added in that direction, such as this about an 1826 London problem with South American bonds/loans "It was not only bondholders who lost out; the South American people also suffered. The small sums which had actually been remitted to the states by the loan contractors were expended on military equipment for war against neighbouring states or used to suppress internal opposition to the regimes." I feel I can't go on without adding the footnote this paragraph has - "According to the financial historian L. H. Jenks, "the violence, the corruption, the instability, [and] the financial recklessness which characterised most of the South American republics during a large part of the [nineteenth] century are in no small way attributable to the early laxity of the London money market." (pg 114)
Right. And continuing my ongoing contention that history is gossip about people who don't get to gossip back, it's great to hear people let loose with the contumely on the least-liked speculators. We learn of US financier Jay Gould that "his touch is death," he was "the worst man on earth since the beginning of the Christian era... treacherous, false, cowardly, and a despicable worm incapable of generous nature," and a "pitiless human carnivore, glutting on the blood of his numberless victims." (pg 178)
Wow. So this book has the destruction of nascent South American countries, Plautus and Cicero quoted on stock trading, Mark Twain lampooning the Gilded Age, stock deals in non-existent countries and non-existent railroads, villains galore, some great quotes from Keynes, and just a general juicy sense of the absurd. Also, Johnson on stock trading, and the disappointments of a young Disraeli.
Balanced against all that deliciousness, this is not really the book to turn to if you want to talk much about Corn Laws or Enclosure or the ills of the Industrial Revolution or smallpox blankets or anything of that nature. This is pretty much the financial world on its own terms and in its own words. And as long as you've got some other history under your belt that's ok. It's a pretty great roller coaster ride, and the writing is smooth, confident, and well-researched, giving you the confidence to go swooping through those loops and dives. Also, and no small thing, the author does a great job of explaining things like derivatives and futures and options and margins and hedge funds in a way that doesn't make your eyes cross and actually helps you understand the machinations behind the highlight quotes.
[edited repeatedly because I keep finding typos]
This book is full of absolutely delicious wack-jobbery. I know a lot of people who find economic history dull, but I beg you to reconsider! Even the modern bits are full of delicious oversized weirdness, such as this from the bit on the S&L crisis of the 1980s: "McBirney of Sunbelt Savings, fed his guests at his north Dallas home on lion meat and antelope, while presiding over the festivities dressed as Henry VIII with dry ice billowing around him. . . At another party at his penthouse suite in Las Vegas, McBirney allegedly diverted his bank's clients with an "enthusiastic lesbian romp" while prostitutes performed fellatio on favoured guests." " (pg 274).
I'm always interested in early tidbits about Lloyd's of London in its coffeehouse days, so how pleasant to know that "When Edward Lloyd moved his coffeehouse to Lombard Street in 1691 brokers were underwriting a variety of risks from highway robbery to the "assurance of female chastity." The merchant who took a wager on the outbreak of war, the life expectancy of King William, or the outcome of a siege was more likely to be doing so because he wished to hedge a business risk than because he was consumed with a gaming lust." (pg 43).
Like all but the greatest single topic books, it does suffer from the weakness that, where I know something about the topic and the period, I could wish for more big-picture analysis. Not every book can be The Perfect Red, after all. I would like there to have been more connecting the explanations of speculative bubbles to the policies in re labor, colonialism, and imperialism during the time. I felt this was especially true for the sections that talked about speculative bubbles in Holland during the rise of the Dutch East India Company, in England during the rise of their East India Company, in the United States during periods that I know were periods of colonialist expansion (Mark Twain wrote feelingly on both ridiculous corrupt capitalism and imperialist US expansion, and, y'know, there are connections). But I think pursuing a thesis like that would have radically shifted the audience and weight of what is basically pop economic history for people in the financial sector.
As it is, we do have some choice though understated bits of commentary added in that direction, such as this about an 1826 London problem with South American bonds/loans "It was not only bondholders who lost out; the South American people also suffered. The small sums which had actually been remitted to the states by the loan contractors were expended on military equipment for war against neighbouring states or used to suppress internal opposition to the regimes." I feel I can't go on without adding the footnote this paragraph has - "According to the financial historian L. H. Jenks, "the violence, the corruption, the instability, [and] the financial recklessness which characterised most of the South American republics during a large part of the [nineteenth] century are in no small way attributable to the early laxity of the London money market." (pg 114)
Right. And continuing my ongoing contention that history is gossip about people who don't get to gossip back, it's great to hear people let loose with the contumely on the least-liked speculators. We learn of US financier Jay Gould that "his touch is death," he was "the worst man on earth since the beginning of the Christian era... treacherous, false, cowardly, and a despicable worm incapable of generous nature," and a "pitiless human carnivore, glutting on the blood of his numberless victims." (pg 178)
Wow. So this book has the destruction of nascent South American countries, Plautus and Cicero quoted on stock trading, Mark Twain lampooning the Gilded Age, stock deals in non-existent countries and non-existent railroads, villains galore, some great quotes from Keynes, and just a general juicy sense of the absurd. Also, Johnson on stock trading, and the disappointments of a young Disraeli.
Balanced against all that deliciousness, this is not really the book to turn to if you want to talk much about Corn Laws or Enclosure or the ills of the Industrial Revolution or smallpox blankets or anything of that nature. This is pretty much the financial world on its own terms and in its own words. And as long as you've got some other history under your belt that's ok. It's a pretty great roller coaster ride, and the writing is smooth, confident, and well-researched, giving you the confidence to go swooping through those loops and dives. Also, and no small thing, the author does a great job of explaining things like derivatives and futures and options and margins and hedge funds in a way that doesn't make your eyes cross and actually helps you understand the machinations behind the highlight quotes.
[edited repeatedly because I keep finding typos]
