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 enlarge | Author: Edward J., Jr. Renehan
Publisher: Basic Books
Category: Book
List Price: $30.00
Buy New: $11.56
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Avg. Customer Rating:  15 reviews
Sales Rank: 660727
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 5.9 x 1.4
Dewey Decimal Number: 338
ASIN: B000MKYKWC
Publication Date: May 24, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Insightful biography treats robber baron evenly January 9, 2007
This biography of Wall Street baron Jay Gould is in some ways a primer on how American media and public opinion seem to demonize capitalists who succeed at doing what capitalists are wont to do, namely, making money. Of course, Gould was no ordinary capitalist. His ruthless tactics gave his enemies a big target to dislike. After all, when you single-handedly create an investment bubble that leads to a crash in the price of gold, resulting in congressional hearings aimed at placing blame, you expect to make a few enemies. Veteran biographer Edward J. Renehan paints a fair, nuanced and colorful portrait of Gould, whose manic focus on business success probably was driven by his tragic childhood. We strongly recommend this book, especially to students of business history, in the belief that it offers a more in-depth record about an extraordinary and extraordinarily flawed man who was vilified in his time.
Interesting biography about a controversial american December 14, 2006
There are a growing number of books on the gilded age in America and many paint the rising industrialists as crooks. In this case they got the image just right. Jay Gould used illegal tactics to build his empire and went as far as to corner the gold market using inside information. It is tactics like his that have inspired laws on wall street today. This is an excellent and well written biography about an interesting figure in our society. It does not lump in other industrialists with Gould and paints Gould in as fair a light as possible. It does extol some of his better virtues including a good business sense and a passion for the railroads. Gould was among the first robber barrons to rise to power and although later eclipsed by others he remains an important figure to read about today. This is essential for any Gilded Age library.
A Quality Look At Baron Battles August 29, 2006
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is an attempt at a sympathetic biography of Jay Gould. He loved his family; he could also be a ruthless warrior in the world of business. So from one perspective, if one doesn't want to face someone who is attempting to stick his financial sword in your fiscal chest, one should not enter the gladiatorial ring that is Wall Street. Except people who need their jobs to support their families are hurt by the displacements resulting from baronial battle. What, to Jay, was a game of chess where the benefits of baron-class fortunes were to be won, was to the employees a time of incalculable chaos. Jay met his ambition, and his family enjoyed the resources of opulence; his victims suffered chaos and the destruction of families that must have resulted. Of course nothing has changed as the United States experiences deindustrialization; the elite have a heck of a ride.
Financial Titan & Business Genius May 20, 2006
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
Edward J Renehan, has produced a marvellously written book about the ruthlessly honest, financial genius & business titan Jay Gould. A resounding five star effort, deeply researched, well thought out and arranged.
For those who understand financial history & business responsibility, this book highlights the authors passion and honest accountability of a great man highly misunderstood with an undeserved muckraking appeal.
Although independently written, Mr Renehan corroborates the articulate, Maury Klein's account of Mr Gould in his book 'The Life & Times of Jay Gould'. Both these books disintegrate the muckraking flack that appeals more to the public sense for 'feeling' historically trapped, by deceptive and dishonest accounts from low effort lazy and envious perceptions of Mr Gould from such works as Mathew Josephson's 'Robber Barons'.
Muckrakers peddle the usual prejudices and dishonest fabrications about Gould because it reinforces the publics' feeling toward 'big' business as evil. Unfortunately, the scam is an easy money earner for a muckraking fabricator. The scam works and the muckraker knows it while deliberately duping the public for a buck. So, the public at large is aloof and in the dark for decades and in this case for generations. But without distorting the facts, Edward Renehan does not reinforce the usual psychological preferences the public wants to hear to earn easy royalties. Great credit has got to go to this author for shining a bright light on muckraking dishonesties and fake truths about Mr Gould.
The thread moves beautifully and so it does, revealing Gould's honesty, integrity and deeds as ruthlessly supreme. This compares to the usual trivial accounts against the great man as dishonest, evil and unscrupulous. In fact Mr Gould's behaviours are consistent through out his short life, burdened with hard work and deeply powerful thinking mastered at an early age in combat with his ailing body. I list just a few -
Muckraker's View #1: Mr Gould is unscrupulous and dishonest in his dealings.
Honest Fact #1: Gould despised dishonesty, watch out for the unbelievable machinations of Daniel Drew in this book & how Gould dealt with him through sheer competitive thought. Gould dealt with the brilliant but consistently whining Cornelius Vanderbilt the same way as he did many of his peers with brutal honesty.
Muckraker's View #2: Mr Gould is a plunderer of railroad properties, a looter of assets and a criminal.
Honest Fact #2: The amazing fact is that Gould rarely depended on a banker's capital to fund his financial operations through borrowings. And neither did he bilk the government on subsidy handouts for railroad financing like most others. For some one accused of plundering railroads, Gould built up and harnessed the most integrated railroad system in the United States during his time that became known as the 'Gould System'.
Like Drew, Vanderbilt and E.H. Harriman [who arrived to control railroads after his death], Gould was a ruthless master strategist of stock trading and financial manipulation. Mr Gould built up his capitals using financial markets via high stake speculations...then invested into and built up ALREADY plundered government sponsored pillaged railroads. Who plundered these railroads prior to Gould's arrival? Criminally devious politicians and fraudulent businessmen. Either Gould crushed them, outmanoeuvred them or bought out their interests as to eliminate their interference and market distortions.
Muckraker's View #3: Gould is evil, devious with bad deeds.
Honest Fact #3: Mr Gould was highly competitive and innovated ruthlessly against other businessmen who took shortcuts to short change the consumer. Not once has any Muckraker rightly accused Gould for having wronged the consumer. Gould drove for high efficiencies and radically lowered consumer costs for his railroads, meticulous in nearly every detail.
In fact, this book explores an exciting access into a highly focused individual, satisfying a curiosity into a mind of Gould so fertile and free to out think and out power almost any challenge against any adversary on any dimension.
Forget the hyperbole muckraking histories on Gould. For he committed himself vastly, enabling the United States to become a super economic force that even most countries have no equal even today. Any one who raises the standard of living for his fellow country men on a vast scale, lowering also the risk for ordinary consumers to deal with rail road transportation in a big way is a hero of life and not a dishonest plunderer of it.
Unfortunately, Gould died prematurely in 1892 at a tender age of 56, but he left his mark on both the United States and indirectly to the world economy in a big way, a great achievement that no Muckraker has the ability to match.
Edward Renehan is a worthy writer of the Gould legacy, a book about a man & his achievements that we should all emulate and thank that he did what he did. Gould built, he died and we prospered. One could not ask for more of the man.
Thorough but technically challenging December 1, 2005
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
Renehan really did his homework. He also does a fair job of trying to reduce some of the mischaracterizations and misunderstandings about some of Jay Gould's machinations. Yet Gould remains less than admirable and still a bit of an enigma. The primary difficulty is the need for degrees in law and finance to fully appreciate the intricacies of Gould's schemes. Some were brilliant. Some schemes were lucky. Most of the time meant to manipulate markets. Gould's repeated use of stock shorting, watered down stocks, "pools" and injunctions makes one's head spin. Gould and his regular colleague in crime, Jim Fisk, used the law -- especially easily swayed or purchased judges -- to have their way with the financial markets.
But he remains an unsympathetic if not fully appreciated character. He did no worse -- in most respects -- than his equally unscrupulous colleagues. Some of this is a sign of the times, when unethical if not downright evil men did their best to exploit the immature markets, pre technology, pre regulation, and prior to any professional standaqrds or ethics.
Reading Gould's life story shows -- for the most part -- how he sort of stumbled into this life of milking the markets. His motives remain somewhat hidden. All in all, Gould comes across as an unsavory genius, not just a dark one. The story is highly complex and sometimes bogs down in the details that don't come across clearly in a biography. Read slowly.
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