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The Money Men: Capitalism, Democracy, and the Hundred Years' War Over the American Dollar

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An "insightful" (Publishers Weekly) history of the development of American capitalism and the men who made it great.

Most Americans are familiar with the political history of the United States, but there is another history woven all through it, a largely forgotten history—the story of the money men. Acclaimed historian H. W. Brands brings them back to J. P. Morgan, who stabilized a foundering U.S. Treasury in 1907; Alexander Hamilton, who founded the first national bank, and Nicholas Biddle, under whose directorship it failed; Jay Cooke, who helped to finance the Union war effort through his then-innovative strategy of selling bonds to ordinary Americans; and Jay Gould, who tried to corner the market on gold in 1869 and as a result brought about Black Friday and fled for his life.

174 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2006

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About the author

H.W. Brands

103 books1,178 followers
H.W. Brands is an acclaimed American historian and author of over thirty books on U.S. history, including Pulitzer Prize finalists The First American and Traitor to His Class. He holds the Jack S. Blanton Sr. Chair in History at the University of Texas at Austin, where he earned his PhD. Originally trained in mathematics, Brands turned to history as a way to pursue his passion for writing. His biographical works on figures like Franklin, Jackson, Grant, and both Roosevelts have earned critical and popular praise for their readability and depth. Raised in Oregon and educated at Stanford, Reed College, and Portland State, he began his teaching career in high schools before entering academia. He later taught at Texas A&M and Vanderbilt before returning to UT Austin. Brands challenges conventional reverence for the Founding Fathers, advocating for a more progressive and evolving view of American democracy. In addition to academic works, his commentary has featured in major documentaries. His books, published internationally and translated into multiple languages, examine U.S. political, economic, and cultural development with compelling narrative force. Beyond academia, he is a public intellectual contributing to national conversations on history and governance.

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Displaying 1 - 30 of 56 reviews
Profile Image for Louise.
1,850 reviews387 followers
November 22, 2016


H. W. Brands defines the roles played by the “Money Men” Alexander Hamilton, Nicholas Biddle, Jay Cooke, Jay Gould and J. P. Morgan in shaping the US financial system. The first half covering the roles of Hamilton, Biddle and Cooke was very good. The second half on Gould and Morgan was a not up the standard of the first, perhaps because the emphasis was on their abuse of the unfettered system more that the resulting changes.

Brands writes of the young nation's leaders holding different perspectives. Those who emphasized democracy are represented by Jefferson who saw a nation of farmers and limited government and those who stressed capitalism represented by Hamilton who envisioned an industrial nation and a government that would enable the growth of capital.

You see how Hamilton’s fight for a National Bank created significant foundations for the US. The Supreme Court solidified its role as a Constitutional interpreter, the federal role was extended to include all “that is necessary and proper…” and the nation’s capital was moved from Philadelphia to what is now Washington DC. Hamilton’s bank operated for 20 years, but its charter was not renewed by Congress. Necessity, the need to borrow money for the War of 1812, brought it back. The Second National Bank did not survive the populism of Andrew Jackson.

The section on the financing of the Civil War was a highlight. I had never heard of Jay Cooke and or his significant contribution to the war effort.

The book gets a little bogged down in the robber baron era, or maybe it is just that the details of the abuses of Gould and Morgan are not very interesting to me.

It would have been better if organized (i.e. had chapters) on the either these "money men" or the significant periods of time in monetary development.
Profile Image for Arminius.
206 reviews49 followers
March 8, 2016
The great financiers who emerged as the Capitalist juggernauts of our history are discussed. It starts with the smartest man ever to grace the continental United States Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton intuitively knew that a Capitalist economy would lead to great prosperity. He learned this as he saw a farming community in Barbados languish in poverty and read Adam Smith’s influential book “The Wealth of Nations.”

When the Great George Washington was unanimously voted into America as its first President he quickly asked Hamilton to plan the economy. Washington, albeit a surveyor and farmer himself, knew from his experience running the war that an agrarian economy would not sustain a government. Hamilton’s plan was for a National Bank with 12 regional banks that could provide credit to needed business. And for the government assuming the debt of the States they incurred during the Revolutionary War.

Thomas Jefferson opposed Hamilton’s program and formed the Democratic Republican party after Washington relinquished the presidency and retired. Jefferson and his followers (Madison and Monroe) agreed with the Monticello Sage. However, each found that the National Bank was a needed instrument when the government needed money.

The Jefferson gang left their vision to a man that was much tougher than they in the 7th President Andrew Jackson. The National Bank charter expired in 1836, President Jackson vetoed its reauthorization and the bank vanquished. The killing of the national Bank led to a financial panic and Depression inherited mainly by Jackson’s successor Martin Van Buren due to local banks freedom to over extend causing the Banks to go insolvent.

The next Money man discussed is Jay Cooke. When President Lincoln needed money to finance the Civil War he relied on an income tax, the Legal Tender Act which made paper money non-redeemable for gold. This did not amount to enough money to fund the war. So Salmon Chase, Lincolns’ Treasury Security, turned to Cooke for help. Cook engineered what was called Five-twenty bonds. This meant that the bonds can be called in 5 years and matured in 20. They also paid a handsome 6 percent. Cooke advertised heavily for these bonds. He received a letter from a man with questions he had about the bonds. He answered each question in laymen terms. The man was so impressed that he sent the letter to the local paper and it spread across the North. This made his bonds more popular than anyone could have dreamed of and provided the needed funding for the North. In a second fund raising effort for the Union Cause Cooke came up with the “seven-thirties’ bond. This was named for its high interest payments of 7.30% Again he marketed these heavily and had much success.


The next Money Men discussed were Jay Gould, Daniel Drew and James Fisk. The trio gradually bought up stock of the Erie Railroad with borrowed money. After America’s richest man, Cornelius Vanderbilt put an end to their attempted take over the trio turned to Gold. They next followed the increased and decreased price of gold. They bought when low and sold when high and amassed a fortune doing so. Gould was called to Congress to explain the effects of Gold prices on the economy. Gould explained that Gold prices at 40 to 45 would produce the best economy for America.

The final Money Man discussed is the American Banking Giant JP Morgan. When investor’s grew nervous after learning the federal governments gold reserves fell to just over $100 million in 1894 they sprinted to the Treasury to redeem their notes in gold pieces. This caused a panic. President Cleveland did not know how to stop it. So he called on JP Morgan who told him to issue a $100 million bond float and he personally would run the float. His actions rescued the treasury.

When the New York Stock exchange ran out of money they appealed to JP who summoned all the bank presidents to his office and secured 27 million from them to save the Stock market.
When the public made yet another run on the banks President Theodore Roosevelt again called on Morgan. He told the President if people would keep their money in the bank everything would work out. So he ordered the larger banks to accept scrip (which are IOU’s) to smaller banks to keep them solvent. When the public realized that they would not lose money because of this, the crises resolved.

The public appreciated JP Morgan’s saving of America’s financial condition but still feared that when he passed on that no one would be capable to do the job of what this private citizen could do. In response, the Federal Reserve was created so the government had control over the financial sector. In effect, it is another version of Hamilton’s National Bank. And just as Hamilton’s original National Bank had its critics so now does the Federal Reserve.
Profile Image for keatssycamore.
376 reviews50 followers
February 19, 2009
Here's what I learned from the book:

The banksters and speculators having been screwing up (and over) the United States for the entirety of it's existence.
Profile Image for Meredith.
117 reviews4 followers
July 20, 2023
Honestly zoned out this whole book. Can’t say I got much out of it. Thought it sounded interesting, but I got bored
Profile Image for Luke.
144 reviews18 followers
April 27, 2023
I’ve read many of Brands’s works now, and I keep reading them because I think he is very good at integrating a bunch of details on his subjects into easy to understand and efficient synopses that are always unbiased. Surely, some of his works have more details than others, and so the integration is more complex, but this is one of his that is quite short and so I was expecting more of a summary (and that’s what I got).

The theme Brands used in this, which all of the details build toward, is that the “war” over the American dollar has been a war between Capitalism vs. Democracy. The subjects he chooses to focus on are on the Capitalists (money men) and the stories told for many of them are their struggling against the democrats (small d) in doing their work.

He starts with Hamilton who gives the working definition of a Capitalist: someone who wants a strong federal government to encourage finance and industrialization. Hamilton’s opponents, embodied in Jefferson, are the democrats. These working definitions are my only true gripe about the book. They are a bit sloppy as I believe they put both terms on bad footing (e.g. capitalists by definition want less government interference in the market, and this idea existed even at the time of Hamilton with the invisible hand of Smith, so this isn’t a modern interpretation issue). I would have preferred something like Financiers v Democrats, which may have allowed him to leave out some of what I see as a problem in what he added to both terms from Hamilton and Jefferson. But given he defined them, and that he stayed fairly true to them throughout (he doesn’t try to switch the meanings later) I can work with them.

Against the backdrop of these definitions he efficiently moves through:
- Biddle, culminating in his fight with Jackson
- J. Cooke and his Civil War financing
- J. Gould, and his gold corner
- JP Morgan, culminating in his court cases

Brands style is to give some historical context leading up to the person he is talking about, then dive into details. The result is that the next person in the list has overlap with the previous during the intro, as the history can go back quite far, which can be jarring in terms of keeping a timeline in one’s head, but generally he does a good job and this works. The historical context and stories told with each person brings in many other major players and events crucial to building his story.

The story arc ends in summary in the appendix, with the war coming to a compromise in the federal reserve, which to Brands is part capitalism and part democracy. The pure capitalists like JP Morgan, the greatest money man of them all, died in Morgan’s final, extraordinary court room performance and the pure democrat farmer cannot shake the bank and finance like Jackson did for a short time, but instead settles with the destruction of the gold standard and popular government controlling the money supply.

I was pretty familiar with each subject outside of Cooke and Gould, and that’s generally when I like to read such books, as it allows me to recollect the subject and my knowledge on them, while building comprehension and perhaps adding new facts and perspectives. In that sense, this book did not disappoint, and I’ll now also make it a point to learn more about civil war finance, as that chapter was quite intriguing.
Profile Image for Donald Powell.
567 reviews52 followers
December 7, 2021
This short book is a biography of several American men with profound impact on money and banking. It is a good recapitulation of the history of banking and money supply of our country. Much of this history is available in other more general history and biography; however, this is much more detailed in the background, transactions and effects of the banking and money issues.
A very worthy read and a primer on money economics.
Profile Image for Literary Chic.
226 reviews3 followers
October 26, 2016
I found Mr. Brands' book on the Money Men well written and succinct. At barely 200 pages, it wasn't a thorough history of the American finance system, but it was a good synopsis of the roots of American capitalism. He spent more time fleshing out the Hamilton/Jefferson capitalism vs. democracy argument than any other. After reading this book, I would like to hear more about the magnates of capitalism (Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Rockefeller) as Mr. Brands barely mentioned them. If you're not looking for an in depth study, the THE MONEY MEN is a great book.
Profile Image for Kipi (the academic stitcher).
412 reviews
August 18, 2023
Dr. Brands has a very special talent for writing history that reads very easily. He is one of my all-time favorite authors, and I own most of the books he's written. Many of his books are much longer than this one, but it is still well researched. The topic itself isn't among my favorites, and the story ends just as the 20th century begins, which is the time where my greatest interest in American history lies. Still, this is an interesting read, particularly the first half of the book which begins with a very brief biography of Alexander Hamilton. Dr. Brands often begins his books with a bit of background info, and this one is no different. The bulk of the story, as the title suggests, is about the men who influenced the financial history of the U.S. In the early years, the two principle worldviews were those of the Capitalists (led by Hamilton) and the Democrats (led by Thomas Jefferson). This was the part of the book that I found the most interesting.

Lloyd James is the narrator, and I thought his performance was quite good.
Profile Image for Emilija.
1,902 reviews31 followers
July 20, 2017
This was a pretty good book, brief but relatively detailed about five important men to the world of American finance; Alexander Hamilton, Nicholas Biddle, Jay Cooke, Jay Gould and J. P. Morgan. It was really interesting seeing how finance evolved over the years and how Brands changed the historical narrative to focus on capitalism vs democracy. It did feel like there was quite a bit missing, so bigger, more in depth books might be a better alternative if a person was looking for specifics.
Profile Image for Emilija.
1,902 reviews31 followers
April 30, 2020
This was a pretty good book, brief but relatively detailed about five important men to the world of American finance; Alexander Hamilton, Nicholas Biddle, Jay Cooke, Jay Gould and J. P. Morgan. It was really interesting seeing how finance evolved over the years and how Brands changed the historical narrative to focus on capitalism vs democracy. It did feel like there was quite a bit missing, so bigger, more in depth books might be a better alternative if a person was looking for specifics.
Profile Image for Mark.
189 reviews8 followers
May 10, 2010
More on my efforts to learn a little about economics. This is hard work for me, because it relies on human behavior more than the laws of nature like physics or engineering. I'm still grappling with some of the concepts, and the separation of capitalism from democracy. The two are often linked, but they are not the same thing.

At any rate, I'd heard some of this before in an audiobook or two from last year about the Great Depression. Still, repetition helps me internalize it.

Better for me was the material about the earlier history, about Hamilton, Andrew Jackson, and the first national banks.
Profile Image for cycads and ferns.
818 reviews99 followers
June 16, 2022
Salmon P. Chase was Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury during the Civil War.
By one account [Salmon] Chase threatened to bury New York in paper if the bond sale failed. “…the war must go on until this rebellion is put down, if we have to put out paper until it takes a thousand dollars to buy a breakfast.”

Enjoyed reading about the establishment of the first federal bank and the early monetary policies of a new nation.
164 reviews
June 23, 2017
The most disappointing aspect of this book was its focus on specific individuals. In retrospect, it shouldn't have been a surprise considering the title; however, I was looking for a book that was more technical and focused more on broader trends during the time period discussed. Instead, it provided a lot of biographical information, and in my opinion, inflated the importance of some, although not all, individuals discussed.

Also I only read small sections of the first two-thirds of the book, because it covered a lot of information with which I was already familiar. This may have biased my perspective, so for readers unfamiliar with this part of American history this book might be more of a worthwhile read.

Finally, this book repeated a historical myth and it leads me to question other parts of the book. The myth repeated at the end of the book is that President Hoover cut spending as a result of the onset of the Great Depression. This is a false claim, and a historian of American financial history should know it is.
Profile Image for Chuck.
211 reviews1 follower
January 19, 2019
An enjoyable walk through history of the creation of our National banking system, how went went from silver to gold as the standard and how our money system was created. Nice overview that policy wonks will enjoy. Hits the highlights without bogging the reader down in too much detail, which can be an issue when approaching this type of economics.

Does a good job bringing the personalities of the key players including Presidents into play. Though thought he went a bit soft on US Grant and his scandals/lack of oversight. Still, did not white wash things either.

Enjoyed HW Brands' style of writing and he has a bunch of books out there. Will not be my last read of his.

399 reviews
September 11, 2025
H.W. Brands has written a brief history of the United States through the lens of five key economic moments. What I liked best about this book was actually how he was able to link various developments together - from Hamilton's fight for a national bank to J.P. Morgan and the Progressives. In just a short volume, Brands has contextualized these five key people and the role they play in what he sees as a larger story of the long-standing fight between capitalists and democrats. I think many students of American history would enjoy the book, though he does assume a decent amount of economic knowledge from his readers.
Profile Image for Kico Meirelles.
279 reviews1 follower
April 17, 2025
This book by Brands is another well-crafted addition to his body of work. He has a talent for weaving complex narratives from a neutral perspective, capturing the essence of the topic without getting bogged down in tedious details.

"The Money Men" exemplifies this skill, as it spans nearly 150 years of history within just 250 pages. The author manages to convey the material effectively without falling into bias or generalization. It's an excellent read for anyone interested in economics and history, offering valuable insights in a concise format.
Profile Image for Penelope.
178 reviews33 followers
November 9, 2019
I listened to the audiobook and found the first two thirds of the books very interesting because it covered the Gilded Age titans that I am most interested in. It also covered the struggle to settle on what type of currency America would most benefit from. Not a long or overly detailed book like the author's books on individuals, it fills in the broader view.
Profile Image for Steve Rice.
121 reviews1 follower
November 22, 2021
Love H.W. Brands, and once again he does not disappoint. Brands bings to life the history of money in the United States and the role that monetary policy plays in the development of capitalism. I especially enjoyed learning about the political battles between those who supported a gold and silver system and those who supported paper money.
Profile Image for Josh.
1,413 reviews30 followers
March 7, 2020
So far, Brands has yet to disappoint me. This is a succinct yet learned overview of the American debates about money from the time of the founding to the early 20th century. As someone with only a tenuous grasp of economic issues, I found this history especially helpful.
211 reviews1 follower
February 13, 2022
As usual, Brands writes with an easy to read style which takes what could be an otherwise dry topic and makes for a very interesting read. Amazing how we think of the battles of today as “new” but really they have been around as long as America and even civilization itself.
5 reviews
December 25, 2024
Interesting to see the development of central banking in the US. Very interested in reading more about Morgan after this. It’s amazing how much impact the money supply has on people’s well being and how most people don’t realize it.
Profile Image for Batu.
249 reviews1 follower
March 2, 2018
Accessible, interesting, and sometimes entertaining explanation of how money works. Everything you want and need to know but didn’t know how or who to ask.
Profile Image for S.L. Berry.
Author 1 book8 followers
May 17, 2019
A good basic introduction to American economic history from the American Revolution to just before the creation of the Federal Reserve with a quick summary of events to modern times.
8 reviews
April 20, 2020
Well written and informative, but not sure the facts are convincing as to what seems to be his thesis.
Profile Image for Andrew Sternisha.
320 reviews2 followers
July 14, 2020
Solid work on the early battles on American currency. It could go more in depth, but this is a nice primer.
Author 10 books1 follower
September 4, 2020
reads like a textbook but informative nonetheless. Hamilton/Morgan/Biddle/Gould/Cooke. Interesting to see what Fed policy will be.
188 reviews2 followers
May 22, 2022
A great overview of the history of money/banks and the men that influenced it in America.
119 reviews7 followers
September 23, 2023
A historian's take on early monetary unions and the living conflicts created by the legislated monopoly on the money supply
Profile Image for Thomas.
692 reviews20 followers
February 18, 2025
Well told account of America's relationship with money, especially the gold standard and the American dollar, in the infancy of the country's history.
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