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American Colossus: The Triumph of Capitalism, 1865-1900
American Colossus: The Triumph of Capitalism, 1865-1900
624 pages, Hardcover
First published October 12, 2010
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3643 people want to read
About the author
H.W. Brands
103 books1,174 followersH.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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August 2, 2024
Capitalism And Democracy
Many people who have thought about the United States have seen a tension between its commitments to democracy and capitalism. The former is based upon equality. Capitalism is based upon an ethic of freedom which allows individuals to go in their own directions which, in economic life, quickly can lead to inequality. In his new book, "American Colossus: The Triumph of Capitalism 1865 -- 1900, H.W. Brands examines the uneasy and shifting relationship between democracy and capitalism during America's Gilded Age following the Civil War. Brands is Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin. He has written prolifically and popularly about a wide range of subjects in American history from Andrew Jackson to both Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt.
The book is written in a popular, narrative style with little technical discussion or statistics. Yet the book is well-informed, thorough, and balanced. It gave me an overview and refresher on its era in a good broad-based account.
In some respects, the book works less well. With its accessibility, the book tends to be thin on economic issues. As a result, the discussions of the attempt of financiers to corner the gold market early in the Grant administration, the panics of 1873 and 1893, and the controversy over free silver both lack detail and are hard to follow in specifics. Although he mentions it at the beginning and end of the book, Brands is not as clear as he might be about the effect of the lack of central bank in the United States between Andrew Jackson's destruction of the Second Bank of the United States and Woodrow Wilson's creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913. This lack was the source of much of the instability he describes. In addition, I thought Brands could have been more explicit about the philosophy of the role of government which dominated most of both major parties during the Gilded Age. During this time, most politicians did not think that the government had a role in social welfare. Thus, Brands describes Grover Cleveland's veto of a bill which would have made a small appropriation to Texas farmers to ease the pain of a crop failure. "Though the people support the Government, the Government should not support the people", Cleveland said. (p. 433) This was the prevailing position, Republican and Democrat, during the Gilded Age. Brands might have made this clearer.
Brands tells the story of the United States during the last third of the Nineteenth Century. The capitalist revolution accounts for a good part but by no means for all of this story. Of the five large parts of his book, the first three treat of economic and social histories more than political history. Thus, Brands describes the growth of speculations, combinations, cutthroat business, corruption, and rampant corporate expansion by discussion the activities and fortunes of J.P. Morgan, John Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie, among others. He discusses the growth of cities, the building of the transcontinental railroad, Reconstruction and its failure, the development of the West and the attendant destruction of the Indians. Brands writing is at its best when he has a story to tell that gets him away from economics -- as when he discusses the cowboys and the cattle runs following the Civil War or John Wesley Powell's treacherous voyage of discovery on the Colorado River, or the Chicago fire of 1871.
The final two parts of the book get more involved with the politics of the day both with corrupt local governments, such as the Tweed Ring, and with the national government. By no later than the end of Grant's presidency, the two parties had moved close together on most economic issues. Questions about the tariff divided them, but most disputes were over questions of honesty, efficiency, and personality. Brands shows the rise of Unionism during this period, with a chilling portrayal of a labor standoff between Carnegie and his deputy, Henry Clay Frick and the Unionists at Carnegie's plant in Homestead, Pennsylvania. Brands gives good accounts of the rise of American imperialism in the Spanish-American War and in the annexation of Hawaii. He emphasizes the economic panics which threatened the nation in 1873 and 1893. During the latter panic, President Grover Cleveland was forced to make an early "bailout" arrangement with J.P. Morgan. This would not be the last time that Morgan would assume such a role. He did so again in 1907. Brands offers an account of the triumph of segregation in the South, of the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision which legitimized "separate but equal" and of the rise of Booker T. Washington as the spokesman for African Americans of his day.
Brands offers a fair summation of his era which concludes that capitalism was "in many ways the best thing ever to befall the ordinary people of America" (p. 542), but at a frightening and ultimately too high social cost. "A screw had come loose and the wheels fallen out of balance", as he quotes with approval an editor of a farm journal of the day. (p. 545) Brands suggests that beginning with the new Twentieth Century and the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, the balance of American life began a much-needed shift from capitalism and freedom back towards the direction of democracy and equality.
This is a good, basic book about the Gilded Age with will be valuable for readers interested in the American experience.
Robin Friedman
Many people who have thought about the United States have seen a tension between its commitments to democracy and capitalism. The former is based upon equality. Capitalism is based upon an ethic of freedom which allows individuals to go in their own directions which, in economic life, quickly can lead to inequality. In his new book, "American Colossus: The Triumph of Capitalism 1865 -- 1900, H.W. Brands examines the uneasy and shifting relationship between democracy and capitalism during America's Gilded Age following the Civil War. Brands is Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin. He has written prolifically and popularly about a wide range of subjects in American history from Andrew Jackson to both Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt.
The book is written in a popular, narrative style with little technical discussion or statistics. Yet the book is well-informed, thorough, and balanced. It gave me an overview and refresher on its era in a good broad-based account.
In some respects, the book works less well. With its accessibility, the book tends to be thin on economic issues. As a result, the discussions of the attempt of financiers to corner the gold market early in the Grant administration, the panics of 1873 and 1893, and the controversy over free silver both lack detail and are hard to follow in specifics. Although he mentions it at the beginning and end of the book, Brands is not as clear as he might be about the effect of the lack of central bank in the United States between Andrew Jackson's destruction of the Second Bank of the United States and Woodrow Wilson's creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913. This lack was the source of much of the instability he describes. In addition, I thought Brands could have been more explicit about the philosophy of the role of government which dominated most of both major parties during the Gilded Age. During this time, most politicians did not think that the government had a role in social welfare. Thus, Brands describes Grover Cleveland's veto of a bill which would have made a small appropriation to Texas farmers to ease the pain of a crop failure. "Though the people support the Government, the Government should not support the people", Cleveland said. (p. 433) This was the prevailing position, Republican and Democrat, during the Gilded Age. Brands might have made this clearer.
Brands tells the story of the United States during the last third of the Nineteenth Century. The capitalist revolution accounts for a good part but by no means for all of this story. Of the five large parts of his book, the first three treat of economic and social histories more than political history. Thus, Brands describes the growth of speculations, combinations, cutthroat business, corruption, and rampant corporate expansion by discussion the activities and fortunes of J.P. Morgan, John Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie, among others. He discusses the growth of cities, the building of the transcontinental railroad, Reconstruction and its failure, the development of the West and the attendant destruction of the Indians. Brands writing is at its best when he has a story to tell that gets him away from economics -- as when he discusses the cowboys and the cattle runs following the Civil War or John Wesley Powell's treacherous voyage of discovery on the Colorado River, or the Chicago fire of 1871.
The final two parts of the book get more involved with the politics of the day both with corrupt local governments, such as the Tweed Ring, and with the national government. By no later than the end of Grant's presidency, the two parties had moved close together on most economic issues. Questions about the tariff divided them, but most disputes were over questions of honesty, efficiency, and personality. Brands shows the rise of Unionism during this period, with a chilling portrayal of a labor standoff between Carnegie and his deputy, Henry Clay Frick and the Unionists at Carnegie's plant in Homestead, Pennsylvania. Brands gives good accounts of the rise of American imperialism in the Spanish-American War and in the annexation of Hawaii. He emphasizes the economic panics which threatened the nation in 1873 and 1893. During the latter panic, President Grover Cleveland was forced to make an early "bailout" arrangement with J.P. Morgan. This would not be the last time that Morgan would assume such a role. He did so again in 1907. Brands offers an account of the triumph of segregation in the South, of the Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court decision which legitimized "separate but equal" and of the rise of Booker T. Washington as the spokesman for African Americans of his day.
Brands offers a fair summation of his era which concludes that capitalism was "in many ways the best thing ever to befall the ordinary people of America" (p. 542), but at a frightening and ultimately too high social cost. "A screw had come loose and the wheels fallen out of balance", as he quotes with approval an editor of a farm journal of the day. (p. 545) Brands suggests that beginning with the new Twentieth Century and the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, the balance of American life began a much-needed shift from capitalism and freedom back towards the direction of democracy and equality.
This is a good, basic book about the Gilded Age with will be valuable for readers interested in the American experience.
Robin Friedman
August 14, 2012
H. W. Brands is one of the historians made popular by “the Ken Burns phenomenon” of the last quarter century. It seems that so many of us had a football coach for high school history that we didn’t realize how damned interesting the story was – at least until Ken Burns reminded us (I’m guessing he didn’t have a coach for that class). Having arrived ignorantly in adulthood, we were strangely ripe for the pickings of an increasingly ingenious publishing industry. Historians are being thrown up the pop charts on the springs of such unlikely subjects as Lincoln’s cabinet (Doris Kearns Goodwin), the life story of the amazingly stolid John Adams (David McCullough), or the squabbles of the 1780’s in the creation of the Constitution (Joseph J. Ellis). Now we receive the unlikeliest contribution of all: the deepest snooze of American history must surely be the period covered by American Colossus. And Brands’ centerpiece is its most monotonous engine, the growth of business.
But wait. It turns out that in the wake of yet another financial disaster brought on by the contesting forces of democracy and capitalism, we could all use a bit of perspective at the moment. I’m sure that Brands noticed an opportunity as Wall Street robbed Main Street yet again. Surveying his notes from the undistinguished epoch from Grant to McKinley, he may have thought: “Hmm. I wonder if I could arrange all these sources and vignettes in a way that seems to tell a tale everyone vaguely knows about but would care to revisit in this particular moment – J. P. Morgan was also too big to fail.” The answer is American Colossus. It really is more episodic than a unified narrative and Brands cannot resist the urge to digress into subjects far more interesting than yet another stock report would be. Yes, there are tales of the Wild West punctuating the otherwise pedestrian march of progress. The economic importance of western expansion could have been explained without (another) detailed recounting of Custer’s Last Stand, but by the time Brands indulges himself in that and other unnecessary sidebars, most readers will be relieved to have a little action. Besides, everything has at least a little economic importance.
American Colossus is your high school history book, but written by a person with at least modest literary sense. You will be reminded of all the crap you didn’t understand in high school, but you’ll understand it now for two reasons. First, this is clearer and more interesting than your textbook was (and you dropped $35.00 on this – the triumph of capitalism?). And, second, you have now consumed enough economic chatter and sound bites to choke any captain of industry, and so, this will be more familiar to you than you realize.
The title of the book might well have been The More Things Change…. There is hardly a single episode in the time period covered by this book that doesn’t find its close analogy in the history of the last two decades. It is demoralizing to contemplate, with dawning awareness, how little we have learned in the last century. The business cycle continues unabated, and the cord that tethers capitalism to democracy remains taut. One pictures a team of donkeys pulling one way against an elephant pointed the opposite direction. Those who tend to interpret the roles of Republicans and Democrats as having shifted greatly since the Civil War will have to answer to Brands’ arguments, which tend to show the overarching unity of viewpoint that pervades their respective histories. If there is one great difference between the late 19th century and the early 21st, it is that the Republicans instead of the Democrats are now saddled with the government-hating populists.
To his credit, Brands resists the urge to moralize or politicize the stories. Instead, he allows the tension between capitalism and democracy to hold the two competing forces of history while narrating the thoughts and motives of crucial individual players on both sides. We have the stories of the moguls such as Carnegie and Rockefeller, and also of the true believers in democratic reform such as Theodore Roosevelt. No one receives unqualified sympathy or heavy-handed condemnation. Thus, the book makes suitable reading even for ideologues in the present. This approach seems to suit the capitalist impulses of its publishers without indicting their political consciences, if they have any.
But wait. It turns out that in the wake of yet another financial disaster brought on by the contesting forces of democracy and capitalism, we could all use a bit of perspective at the moment. I’m sure that Brands noticed an opportunity as Wall Street robbed Main Street yet again. Surveying his notes from the undistinguished epoch from Grant to McKinley, he may have thought: “Hmm. I wonder if I could arrange all these sources and vignettes in a way that seems to tell a tale everyone vaguely knows about but would care to revisit in this particular moment – J. P. Morgan was also too big to fail.” The answer is American Colossus. It really is more episodic than a unified narrative and Brands cannot resist the urge to digress into subjects far more interesting than yet another stock report would be. Yes, there are tales of the Wild West punctuating the otherwise pedestrian march of progress. The economic importance of western expansion could have been explained without (another) detailed recounting of Custer’s Last Stand, but by the time Brands indulges himself in that and other unnecessary sidebars, most readers will be relieved to have a little action. Besides, everything has at least a little economic importance.
American Colossus is your high school history book, but written by a person with at least modest literary sense. You will be reminded of all the crap you didn’t understand in high school, but you’ll understand it now for two reasons. First, this is clearer and more interesting than your textbook was (and you dropped $35.00 on this – the triumph of capitalism?). And, second, you have now consumed enough economic chatter and sound bites to choke any captain of industry, and so, this will be more familiar to you than you realize.
The title of the book might well have been The More Things Change…. There is hardly a single episode in the time period covered by this book that doesn’t find its close analogy in the history of the last two decades. It is demoralizing to contemplate, with dawning awareness, how little we have learned in the last century. The business cycle continues unabated, and the cord that tethers capitalism to democracy remains taut. One pictures a team of donkeys pulling one way against an elephant pointed the opposite direction. Those who tend to interpret the roles of Republicans and Democrats as having shifted greatly since the Civil War will have to answer to Brands’ arguments, which tend to show the overarching unity of viewpoint that pervades their respective histories. If there is one great difference between the late 19th century and the early 21st, it is that the Republicans instead of the Democrats are now saddled with the government-hating populists.
To his credit, Brands resists the urge to moralize or politicize the stories. Instead, he allows the tension between capitalism and democracy to hold the two competing forces of history while narrating the thoughts and motives of crucial individual players on both sides. We have the stories of the moguls such as Carnegie and Rockefeller, and also of the true believers in democratic reform such as Theodore Roosevelt. No one receives unqualified sympathy or heavy-handed condemnation. Thus, the book makes suitable reading even for ideologues in the present. This approach seems to suit the capitalist impulses of its publishers without indicting their political consciences, if they have any.
September 2, 2011
If you want a review of American history during the Gilded Age, the book is fine if pedantic in places. However, if you want something beyond a shallow analysis of WHY such great wealth was created during the period, get a different book.
For Brands it boils down to capitalism versus democracy. By "democracy," he means labor. Capitalism created a tremendous amount of wealth... BUT... labor is better. WHY labor is better is never questioned. The assumption is just that labor is better.
In reality, the book illustrates that neither is better. Both used, or attempted to use, the government to gain wealth from the other. The obvious solution to this conflict is to get rid of the government. Then neither side would be able to take advantage of the other. But the goodness or necessity of government is also never questioned.
In fact, when Brands has to admit that government bureaucrats and politicians took advantage of their power to enrich themselves, he excuses it by saying that capitalists did the same sort of thing. Such shallow thinking hardly inspires confidence in Brands' apparent unshaken faith in the goodness of government.
In his summary, Brands spends nearly 3 pages ennumerating the improvements in American life wrought over 30+ years. The problem? Well, he offers one small paragraph concluding that such wealth creation wasn't all that great because it created greater inequality. Funny, I don't think anyone would have volunteered to turn the clock back to 1865 to make that inequality smaller.
One particularly interesting fact that I did learn, however, was that the military has been used against American citizens, and that riots spread rapidly across the country, aided by the telegraph. Apparently the recent riot in London wasn't the first such event inspired by "social media."
The book will confirm those who glory in the sainthood of Theodore Roosevelt (ignore his imperialist urges), and Franklin Roosevelt. They helped make America safe from the evil capitalists. Ignore FDR's reign over the hardest economic times ever experienced in the US. I'm sure it was all the capitalists fault somehow.
Of course, it's highly ironic how Brands recounts Woodrow Wilson overseeing the establishment of the Federal Reserve, in order to put money under the control of democracy instead of capital. As we've learned during the Great Recession, the Fed was a major cause of our current economic problems.
So it's really too bad that Brands is so shallow in his review of the Gilded Age, when America created almost unimaginable wealth. We sure could use some of that wealth-creation ability today.
For Brands it boils down to capitalism versus democracy. By "democracy," he means labor. Capitalism created a tremendous amount of wealth... BUT... labor is better. WHY labor is better is never questioned. The assumption is just that labor is better.
In reality, the book illustrates that neither is better. Both used, or attempted to use, the government to gain wealth from the other. The obvious solution to this conflict is to get rid of the government. Then neither side would be able to take advantage of the other. But the goodness or necessity of government is also never questioned.
In fact, when Brands has to admit that government bureaucrats and politicians took advantage of their power to enrich themselves, he excuses it by saying that capitalists did the same sort of thing. Such shallow thinking hardly inspires confidence in Brands' apparent unshaken faith in the goodness of government.
In his summary, Brands spends nearly 3 pages ennumerating the improvements in American life wrought over 30+ years. The problem? Well, he offers one small paragraph concluding that such wealth creation wasn't all that great because it created greater inequality. Funny, I don't think anyone would have volunteered to turn the clock back to 1865 to make that inequality smaller.
One particularly interesting fact that I did learn, however, was that the military has been used against American citizens, and that riots spread rapidly across the country, aided by the telegraph. Apparently the recent riot in London wasn't the first such event inspired by "social media."
The book will confirm those who glory in the sainthood of Theodore Roosevelt (ignore his imperialist urges), and Franklin Roosevelt. They helped make America safe from the evil capitalists. Ignore FDR's reign over the hardest economic times ever experienced in the US. I'm sure it was all the capitalists fault somehow.
Of course, it's highly ironic how Brands recounts Woodrow Wilson overseeing the establishment of the Federal Reserve, in order to put money under the control of democracy instead of capital. As we've learned during the Great Recession, the Fed was a major cause of our current economic problems.
So it's really too bad that Brands is so shallow in his review of the Gilded Age, when America created almost unimaginable wealth. We sure could use some of that wealth-creation ability today.
Read
August 3, 2011University of Texas historian Bill Brands surveys what the book’s subtitle calls “The Triumph of Capitalism, 1865-1900.” It seems Brands isn’t happy with the outcome of his story, as capitalism bests populism by convincing working class voters that free markets provide more prosperity and opportunity that populism’s class warfare could. AMERICAN COLOSSUS is written with verve, attention to detail, and breezy portraiture of the interesting actors – many of them businessmen and financiers – who shape this era by bold decisions, tough action, and sometimes chicanery. Though a good read, COLOSSUS peters out at the end. Nor can Brand bring himself to fully acknowledge how capitalism’s benefits include profoundly improved the quality of life and providing increasing affluence for wave after wave of often poor and ill-educated immigrants. Maybe there was a practical reason why working people rejected populism for free enterprise: the latter improved their lives and the former didn’t.
December 21, 2010
As deeply in love as I am becoming with the Gilded Age, it would be hard for me to dislike American Colossus . Brands' view of the era through the lens of capitalism allows him to give a very broad American history from Reconstruction until the turn of the century. Seemingly EVERYTHING is covered in some form in the book. Chapters range from Indian affairs to the Spanish-American War. While providing a very interesting history, I felt lost in other historiographies, at times. At other times, the connections made to capitalism are clear and often reiterated. Emphasis on the Pullman and Homestead labor riots have a lucid place in the book and their aftermath is reverberated throughout. The central characters of Jay Gould, the Rockefellers, Andrew Carnegie, and JP Morgan are key in the first chapters, lose their prominence in the bulk of the book, only to re-appear in its concluding chapters. Partisan shuffling over economic issues, such as the direction of the Republican party after Restoration or the the debate over bimetallism are well documented in the book. The author highlighted the confliction between capitalism and democracy and this contributed to adherence. Because of Brands' macro-historical approach (pushing the book to over 550 pages), the author's point could be that capitalism touched and sometimes tainted American history in this era, fashioning the US into the country we recognize. This I am okay with as I thoroughly enjoyed the walk through this leg of our history AND I learned quite a bit too.
November 12, 2014
H.W. Brands hardly ever disappoints. "American Colossus" is an excellent history on America's "Gilded Age" with an emphasis on capitalism and labor.
However, much more is included. Topics as diverse as immigration, industrialization, Wall Street, growth of cities, "the rise of Jim Crow", Texas cattle drives, the Plains Indian wars, and unions are discussed by showcasing many colorful Americans including Black Elk, John D. Rockefeller, Booker T. Washington, William Jennings Bryan, Ida Wells, and Theodore Roosevelt just to name a few.
Especially helpful for me was his explanation of how many Americans viewed capitalism as hostile to labor (and vice versa of course). This eventually lead to the Populists and Progressive movements. In his conclusions near the end of the book this "capitalism vs. democracy" war is laid out especially clear.
As always, Brands is fair and clear in his analysis, being a wonderful historian and writer. This is a book I'll be turing back to often in the future.
However, much more is included. Topics as diverse as immigration, industrialization, Wall Street, growth of cities, "the rise of Jim Crow", Texas cattle drives, the Plains Indian wars, and unions are discussed by showcasing many colorful Americans including Black Elk, John D. Rockefeller, Booker T. Washington, William Jennings Bryan, Ida Wells, and Theodore Roosevelt just to name a few.
Especially helpful for me was his explanation of how many Americans viewed capitalism as hostile to labor (and vice versa of course). This eventually lead to the Populists and Progressive movements. In his conclusions near the end of the book this "capitalism vs. democracy" war is laid out especially clear.
As always, Brands is fair and clear in his analysis, being a wonderful historian and writer. This is a book I'll be turing back to often in the future.
October 14, 2011
As an overview of the time from the Civil War to the early 1900's, this is a good book, well written and interesting. This contains the kind of stories one would wish showed up in school books to get people interested in history and to get people talking about political and economic choices. Did capitalism successfully drive the growth of the country? At what costs? And how were its more monstrous forms managed? What are the things that democracy destroyed in its own right through the subjugation of minorities? How can or should we balance both capital and human growth?
The overarching architecture of this book attempts to portray the ongoing struggle between the ideals of democracy and those of capitalism showing how they faced off against each other, each at various times winning over the other and wreaking its own havoc.
This is well worth reading for those who want perspective on our current times as there are threads which are drawn through history which we need to step back to see on a larger scale than that of our own personal time line.
The overarching architecture of this book attempts to portray the ongoing struggle between the ideals of democracy and those of capitalism showing how they faced off against each other, each at various times winning over the other and wreaking its own havoc.
This is well worth reading for those who want perspective on our current times as there are threads which are drawn through history which we need to step back to see on a larger scale than that of our own personal time line.
November 13, 2021
This book went a really different direction than I thought it would when I read the synopsis of the book. But it was a good direction. I thought going into it that it would be primarily about the robber barons and finance. And though those things were in the book, I really enjoyed the other topics discussed during that time such as the development of the West, union and labor developments, and the plight of the American Indians during this period to name a few. It’s not only about money, capital, and the Industrial Revolution but it is really an anthropological study of how America emerged from an agricultural nation to become a world superpower.
June 1, 2013
I listened to this volume as a CD -- 19 discs lasting more than 20 hours. Briefly, it is not Dr. Brands' best work. It tries to do too much, and, as a result, fails to do what it sets out to do very well. For me, the story wandered -- it is a compilation of a plethora of vignettes, each of which is a fascinating episode in itself. But together, the book is disjointed and uncoordinated. In addition, despite its length, I found many of the stories to be incomplete, often one-sided, with frequent language use that belies a bias on the author's part.
February 14, 2018
Extraordinary book to read, it haunts and saddens me. Our political system has been disquietingly vicious in its disregard for the rights and needs of human beings in it vicious devotion to property and exploitation of all aspects of nature and people. This is an exceptionally well written and thoughtful history of the United States. It deserves a full review by a reviewer on this page.
March 26, 2018
At first glance, you'd expect this to be incredibly tedious, a history of economics in the last half of the 19th century. However, due to the events of the time, the personalities involved, and especially the skill of Brands at making the topic interesting, its an engaging and interesting read.
The "Gilded" time when titans of industry and banking such as JP Morgan, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Fisk, Gould, and Vanderbilt built empires and pulled America along with them were fascinating figures. This book brings them to life, but not just them. It examines the lesser-known figures, as well as major figures of exploration, survival, military, and more across America as the nation grew and changed.
This book is rather thick partly due to extensive footnotes, but also because it tries to be exhaustive and nationwide in its analysis, looking at not only the railways and industry of the northeast, but reconstruction south, struggles of freed slaves, the Indian tribes and their histories, frontier explorers, settlers, Texas cattlemen, and much more.
Its a pretty extensive look, although not as complete as an examination of any one of these people or topics individually, obviously. The only real drawback is that he draws a distinction between "democracy" and "capitalism" as if the two are in opposition. That's like comparing and contrasting coca cola and F1 racing cars; they really have no relation.
What he means to contrast is individualism and collectivism, but he uses the wrong terms and its a bit misleading (and its subtle but clear where his preference lies).
The "Gilded" time when titans of industry and banking such as JP Morgan, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Fisk, Gould, and Vanderbilt built empires and pulled America along with them were fascinating figures. This book brings them to life, but not just them. It examines the lesser-known figures, as well as major figures of exploration, survival, military, and more across America as the nation grew and changed.
This book is rather thick partly due to extensive footnotes, but also because it tries to be exhaustive and nationwide in its analysis, looking at not only the railways and industry of the northeast, but reconstruction south, struggles of freed slaves, the Indian tribes and their histories, frontier explorers, settlers, Texas cattlemen, and much more.
Its a pretty extensive look, although not as complete as an examination of any one of these people or topics individually, obviously. The only real drawback is that he draws a distinction between "democracy" and "capitalism" as if the two are in opposition. That's like comparing and contrasting coca cola and F1 racing cars; they really have no relation.
What he means to contrast is individualism and collectivism, but he uses the wrong terms and its a bit misleading (and its subtle but clear where his preference lies).
February 6, 2022
At the end of the day this is 600+ page book about the Gilded Age. That limits the audience. I think that H.W. Brands is a great historian. He is truly one of the best writers of historical narrative working today, and he publishes a book like every year. I felt like this book lacked a strong thesis to really propel things. Capitalism was the defining factor of the era? Sure. It then goes onto take what would be maybe 100 pages of a text book and expands on detail, anecdote, and some transitions to get up to the page count. It seems to me that Brands has written a couple of books on this and similar topics, at least one on the Robber Barons and one on the Currency Question the, that are more analytical. He really wanted a grand narrative with this book, and it is definitely here. I kept turning pages.
I'm glad I read this, but sometimes I feel like Brands was a bit to forgiving to some of the characters who populate his history. This is often done in the service of history, but some folks get the benefit of the doubt, who just simply don't deserve it.
All that said, I'm glad I stuck with this one. It took awhile, but I felt accomplished as I finished the epilogue. That can be a hard trick for a book like this.
I'm glad I read this, but sometimes I feel like Brands was a bit to forgiving to some of the characters who populate his history. This is often done in the service of history, but some folks get the benefit of the doubt, who just simply don't deserve it.
All that said, I'm glad I stuck with this one. It took awhile, but I felt accomplished as I finished the epilogue. That can be a hard trick for a book like this.
March 28, 2024
An interesting study of American Capitalism vs American Democracy and it is hard not to feel a sense of deja vu as one starts to realize that there have been various versions of "Occupy Wall street" over the last 150 years
July 16, 2018
3.5 stars, because the first half was great but the second half got lost, doubled backed, wandered around, and fizzled out.
January 23, 2022
Vital history like the subject in the title of this book can not be ignored. Understanding the US involvement with unfettered capitalism is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand today's politics in my opinion. So with that in mind and also the fact that I want to read all of H.W. Brands books I picked this one up. My one problem....
I enjoy deep dives into singular topics. What we get here is many stories about capitalism from 1865-1900 that range from very enlightening to what I found well worn topics that I have previously examined closely. Whenever I start to attach myself to a chapters the subject changed and I could not figure out why the book was arranged like it was. The chapters just bounced around too much for me, I need one chapter to flow into the other. There were chapters which I did not immediately understand why they were included as they did not seem germane to the topic.
The text did include great stories that I found compelling, there was also interesting chapters which if I had not read about in detail I would have found revealing. Last year I covered T.R., Rockefeller and many presidential biographies from the era. So with that said my very favorite disclaimer, this is just how I feel about this book. I have my own biases and I think everything by H.W. Brands is worthy of checking out despite my rating.
I enjoy deep dives into singular topics. What we get here is many stories about capitalism from 1865-1900 that range from very enlightening to what I found well worn topics that I have previously examined closely. Whenever I start to attach myself to a chapters the subject changed and I could not figure out why the book was arranged like it was. The chapters just bounced around too much for me, I need one chapter to flow into the other. There were chapters which I did not immediately understand why they were included as they did not seem germane to the topic.
The text did include great stories that I found compelling, there was also interesting chapters which if I had not read about in detail I would have found revealing. Last year I covered T.R., Rockefeller and many presidential biographies from the era. So with that said my very favorite disclaimer, this is just how I feel about this book. I have my own biases and I think everything by H.W. Brands is worthy of checking out despite my rating.
August 10, 2022
Does what a good history book should do and more. Keeps the readers engaged through both important historical figures and the major events and themes of the 19th century U.S. history. Mr. Brand emphasizes the tension and conflict that existed between Capitalism and Democracy painting a lot of the struggles that the rise of both ideas bore.
The book really went in depth with the “robber barons” of the time which made the first third of the book dramatic and insightful. The moguls, the likes of Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Morgan, Gould were all brought back to life through Mr. Brands writing. I especially enjoyed the episodes of Vanderbilt and the fight for Erie Railroad and the 1869 Gold Scheme by Jay Gould and gang.
A solid book to understand a distant time in America.
The book really went in depth with the “robber barons” of the time which made the first third of the book dramatic and insightful. The moguls, the likes of Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Morgan, Gould were all brought back to life through Mr. Brands writing. I especially enjoyed the episodes of Vanderbilt and the fight for Erie Railroad and the 1869 Gold Scheme by Jay Gould and gang.
A solid book to understand a distant time in America.
January 12, 2021
I bought this book years ago and really enjoyed it when I first started reading it. Then life got in the way for four years. I finally decided to finish what I started.
Brands is a master story teller and approaches the Gilded Age through stories and characters. His main thesis pits democracy and capitalism at odds with each other and his point is well made.
I picked this book up because I felt the gilded age was the best section of American history I most lacked. This is primarily an economic history but Brands does a good job of explaining the economic concepts and keeping it very interesting. I really enjoyed it.
Brands is a master story teller and approaches the Gilded Age through stories and characters. His main thesis pits democracy and capitalism at odds with each other and his point is well made.
I picked this book up because I felt the gilded age was the best section of American history I most lacked. This is primarily an economic history but Brands does a good job of explaining the economic concepts and keeping it very interesting. I really enjoyed it.
June 28, 2020
This book wasn't what I expected. It tells the story of American politics, captialism, industry and finance from just before the Civil War until WWI. It is a good reminder that we as a nation have been full of contradiction and self interest from the start. I found it an interesting read but not great...
January 15, 2023
Huge book that serves as several extensive biographies to the men of industry that rose between the civil war and the turn of the Twentieth Century, as well as a detailed description and overview of social and political events of that time. Some of it is told in a linear narrative, while some of it breaks for deep dives into specific historical topics.
With so much happening in this time period, the reader will get a great overviews on: slavery, reconstruction, settling the west, the gold rush, Native Americans, economics, oil, coal, building the Railroads, building of large cities like Chicago and NY.
⚠️Parental Warning ⚠️
Various quotations contain expletives:
“I’ll be damned”, N word multiple times, SOB.
There is a graphic descriptions of the sand creek massacre, which documents the removal of victims’ genitals.
Prostitution and gay communities are mentioned.
Someone accused of being child molester, but there are no details
With so much happening in this time period, the reader will get a great overviews on: slavery, reconstruction, settling the west, the gold rush, Native Americans, economics, oil, coal, building the Railroads, building of large cities like Chicago and NY.
⚠️Parental Warning ⚠️
Various quotations contain expletives:
“I’ll be damned”, N word multiple times, SOB.
There is a graphic descriptions of the sand creek massacre, which documents the removal of victims’ genitals.
Prostitution and gay communities are mentioned.
Someone accused of being child molester, but there are no details
March 1, 2019
A average book about the captains of industry as well as some cultural aspects as well.
May 22, 2020
A really good survey of the second half of the nineteenth century for those who have a fair knowledge of the time period already. Although at times unbalanced, moments were fully engrossing.
February 13, 2022
Really thicc-read but very interesting. The book really illustrates how even though so much has changed there still remain so many lingering issues that haven't.
November 7, 2025
I was hoping for a book more concentrated on American Business during the guilded age, but it focused on various aspects of society during that period. Some I found interesting, other chapters less so. Overall a good history book though.
April 20, 2023
Interesting narrative history through the end of the Civil War to the start of the Great War in the epilogue. Great overview of the entire time period.
February 18, 2023
The tale of America’s transformation during the last third of the nineteenth century is told with the knack for anecdotes and quickly digestible history readers have come to expect from H.W. Brands. The time period which would come to be known as the Gilded Age is relayed with an eye for informative storylines in American Colossus: The Triumph of Capitalism 1865-1900.
The attempt by Jay Gould and Jim Fisk in 1869 to corner the gold market is laid out early on, a greedy heist attempt which appropriately inaugurates an age of conspicuous nationwide wealth acquisition. President Ulysses S. Grant’s brother-in-law Abel Corbin and Treasury official Daniel Butterfield were players in this drama as well, actors in an ultimately unsuccessful effort which resulted in the ruining of market speculators and creation of sufficient turbulence to earn September 24th, 1869, the label of the first Black Friday.
Building on this cautionary tale of greed, Brands next turns his focus to the railroad industry.
The terrible conditions many Chinese laborers worked in to assist in the completion of the westward tracks are described, as was the resistance their efforts to push for an improvement in these conditions were met with by their employers. The Union Pacific and Central Pacific’s collision course on their way to meeting up in Promontory Point, Utah, make for some interesting passages. Federal funding was doled out by the mile; subsequently, there were less than scrupulous means utilized to gain more and more tax dollars courtesy of creative routes. In addition, a race to be the railroad which laid the most overall miles was also engendered.
The author tells how Central Pacific workers making progress through areas like California had a lot of the raw materials they needed-such as stone for bridges or wood for ties-right on hand as they laid track through mountains and forests. On the other hand, things were often more challenging for the Union Pacific workers laying tracks through plains states like Nebraska. These laborers often had to cart materials in from hundreds of miles away.
And what would a book heavy on the expansion of train travel be without some scandal thrown in? The Credit Mobilier scheme, which featured abuse of a holding company and kickbacks galore to members of Congress voting for railroad-related federal largesse, tarnished the careers of government officials like Schuyler Colfax and Henry Wilson.
An equally scandalous, though non-train-related scandal, further damaged trust in the Grant administration when the shenanigans around the Whiskey Ring were outed. Considering William “Boss” Tweed and Tammany Hall were running things in New York and enriching the contractors and elected officials in their pockets during this same era, the American people seemingly had few reasons to have high levels of trust in their elected officials’ integrity.
The explosion of railroads and the societal impacts they caused are looked at early on in the book. Aside from the Central Pacific and Union Pacific’s efforts to finally form a transcontinental railroad, the Reading, Erie, Penn, and Baltimore and Ohio railroads all play a role during this monumental landscape and economy transforming change.
Following the onset of an economic depression in 1873, cost-cutting measures by railroad management would result in riots in places like Baltimore, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh. This unrest centered around railroads’ treatment of their laborers, and the year 1877 would see a violent Great Strike rattle the country.
This trend of strike-related violence would be a common theme throughout American Colossus, as would the tendency for the American government to take the side of management. From Rutherford B. Hayes to Benjamin Harrison to Grover Cleveland, one president after another would support the strikebreakers in their fights against the workers. With memories of the Paris Commune still fresh in the historical memory, the onset of urban disorder was met with force by men in governor's mansions and the White House alike.
But labor unrest and a restructuring of time and place were not the only relevant aspects of the growing railroad industry. Much of the mileage was laid in areas inhabited by Native Americans, and clashes with these tribes constitute some of the anecdotes relayed by Brands. He shows an ease in his books when writing about relations between whites and the Native Americans, and American Colossus proves no exception. With the railroads expanding and the discovery of gold in places like the Sioux-populated Black Hills, conflicts between natives and the Manifest Destiny seeking settlers were all but bound to occur.
Attacks by Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Sioux Indians on white settlers in places like Julesburg, Colorado, and along the road to Bozeman, Montana, are but a few examples of the violence meted out by the natives on their unwelcome visitors.
The Americans-or Wasichuas, essentially a moniker meaning “the white people” that they were sometimes called-frequently had Army units in the Plains led by Civil war veterans who had covered themselves in glory barely a decade early during the Civil War. But they frequently fell short of humane actions when it came to their treatment of the Indians.
General George Custer’s men were shown to have not only been defeated but to have acted with dishonorable violence toward the Cheyenne and Sioux during the infamous clash at Little Big Horn.
George Forsyth's soldiers would later cover themselves in even more disgrace courtesy of their actions toward Black Elk's Lakota tribe at Wounded Knee creek during the 1890 massacre. The relations between the natives and the white settlers come across as a massive exercise in miscommunication and missed opportunities.
The perspective of the Indians is well provided for. Red Cloud, Black Elk, and Crazy Horse all have their actions analyzed by the sort of cool detachment Brands excels in.
The section looking at the growth of Abilene as a veritable cattle “boomtown” makes for interesting reading as well. Descriptions of cow herding and the methods used to move cattle across vast distances provides a break from discussions of labor strikes and Indian policy. This portion of American Colossus even lets Brands shoehorn in the story of Theodore Roosevelt’s life as a rancher in the Badlands of the Dakotas during the 1880s. This experience left him forced to take a massive monetary loss when many of his cattle were wiped out thanks to a bad break of inclement weather.
John Wesley Powell and George Bradley’s explorations of the American southwest provided a sneak preview of what would ultimately blossom into an early twentieth century policy of irrigation and damming to support large population growth in that region. Powell, however, was a bit before his time in his vision of the desert southwest as a region of rapid growth.
With wealth concentrating in the hands of a small number of individuals during the last third of the 1800s, attention naturally turned toward the so-called Robber Barons (or Captains of Industry as their apologists are wont to call them).
Readers who crack open American Colossus expecting to hear about the likes of J.P. Morgan, Leland Stanford, John Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and Andrew Carnegie will not see this expectation disappointed. While the latter had his reputation severely dinged courtesy of the 1892 Homestead Strike (described in the pages of American Colossus), the former twice bailed out the U.S. government. During the Cleveland and then the Teddy Roosevelt administration Morgan leaned on his financial resources and Wall Street contacts to prevent the economy from going under during a period of pre-Federal Reserve illiquidity.
And who could expect to read a book on this era without being regaled with the story of Chicago’s Great Fire of 1871? Brands makes sure to recount this awe-inspiring disaster. Or tales of the time which saw some of the highest levels of immigration in the country’s history? From the difficulties of Chinese and Irish workers finding a place in society to race riots in Memphis, Brands does justice to those on the margins of society during an age of unequally spread affluence and massive changes in the makeup of various urban populations.
The post-Reconstruction difficulties faced by African-Americans resulted in men like Booker T. Washington on one hand and W.E.B. Dubious on the other preaching different tactics for overcoming the intransience of the more propertied classes. This debate is analyzed, although Brands expends more time looking at things through more of a class than race-based dimension.
The rise of Social Darwinist ideas from the likes of William Graham Sumner and the populist ideas touted by failed presidential candidate/prairie radicals like William Jennings Bryan constitute the closing acts of American Colossus. America's flirtation with imperialism courtesy of the Spanish-American War and the subsequent insurgency in the Philippines pull the curtain down on the nineteenth century.
This book is just the sort of well-rounded walk through America’s past readers of the country’s history should expect. The balance of the presentation is commendable. The presence of individuals who are well-known alongside the inclusion of other players of a more marginal but nonetheless informative bent add to the overall strength of Brands’s book.
A fully formed grasp of the Gilded Age will be attained by reading this compelling work of nonfiction. Crucial years which constituted the formative basis for the twentieth and twenty-first century’s particular brand of capitalism are described well in the richly written pages of American Colossus.
-Andrew Canfield Denver, Colorado
The attempt by Jay Gould and Jim Fisk in 1869 to corner the gold market is laid out early on, a greedy heist attempt which appropriately inaugurates an age of conspicuous nationwide wealth acquisition. President Ulysses S. Grant’s brother-in-law Abel Corbin and Treasury official Daniel Butterfield were players in this drama as well, actors in an ultimately unsuccessful effort which resulted in the ruining of market speculators and creation of sufficient turbulence to earn September 24th, 1869, the label of the first Black Friday.
Building on this cautionary tale of greed, Brands next turns his focus to the railroad industry.
The terrible conditions many Chinese laborers worked in to assist in the completion of the westward tracks are described, as was the resistance their efforts to push for an improvement in these conditions were met with by their employers. The Union Pacific and Central Pacific’s collision course on their way to meeting up in Promontory Point, Utah, make for some interesting passages. Federal funding was doled out by the mile; subsequently, there were less than scrupulous means utilized to gain more and more tax dollars courtesy of creative routes. In addition, a race to be the railroad which laid the most overall miles was also engendered.
The author tells how Central Pacific workers making progress through areas like California had a lot of the raw materials they needed-such as stone for bridges or wood for ties-right on hand as they laid track through mountains and forests. On the other hand, things were often more challenging for the Union Pacific workers laying tracks through plains states like Nebraska. These laborers often had to cart materials in from hundreds of miles away.
And what would a book heavy on the expansion of train travel be without some scandal thrown in? The Credit Mobilier scheme, which featured abuse of a holding company and kickbacks galore to members of Congress voting for railroad-related federal largesse, tarnished the careers of government officials like Schuyler Colfax and Henry Wilson.
An equally scandalous, though non-train-related scandal, further damaged trust in the Grant administration when the shenanigans around the Whiskey Ring were outed. Considering William “Boss” Tweed and Tammany Hall were running things in New York and enriching the contractors and elected officials in their pockets during this same era, the American people seemingly had few reasons to have high levels of trust in their elected officials’ integrity.
The explosion of railroads and the societal impacts they caused are looked at early on in the book. Aside from the Central Pacific and Union Pacific’s efforts to finally form a transcontinental railroad, the Reading, Erie, Penn, and Baltimore and Ohio railroads all play a role during this monumental landscape and economy transforming change.
Following the onset of an economic depression in 1873, cost-cutting measures by railroad management would result in riots in places like Baltimore, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh. This unrest centered around railroads’ treatment of their laborers, and the year 1877 would see a violent Great Strike rattle the country.
This trend of strike-related violence would be a common theme throughout American Colossus, as would the tendency for the American government to take the side of management. From Rutherford B. Hayes to Benjamin Harrison to Grover Cleveland, one president after another would support the strikebreakers in their fights against the workers. With memories of the Paris Commune still fresh in the historical memory, the onset of urban disorder was met with force by men in governor's mansions and the White House alike.
But labor unrest and a restructuring of time and place were not the only relevant aspects of the growing railroad industry. Much of the mileage was laid in areas inhabited by Native Americans, and clashes with these tribes constitute some of the anecdotes relayed by Brands. He shows an ease in his books when writing about relations between whites and the Native Americans, and American Colossus proves no exception. With the railroads expanding and the discovery of gold in places like the Sioux-populated Black Hills, conflicts between natives and the Manifest Destiny seeking settlers were all but bound to occur.
Attacks by Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Sioux Indians on white settlers in places like Julesburg, Colorado, and along the road to Bozeman, Montana, are but a few examples of the violence meted out by the natives on their unwelcome visitors.
The Americans-or Wasichuas, essentially a moniker meaning “the white people” that they were sometimes called-frequently had Army units in the Plains led by Civil war veterans who had covered themselves in glory barely a decade early during the Civil War. But they frequently fell short of humane actions when it came to their treatment of the Indians.
General George Custer’s men were shown to have not only been defeated but to have acted with dishonorable violence toward the Cheyenne and Sioux during the infamous clash at Little Big Horn.
George Forsyth's soldiers would later cover themselves in even more disgrace courtesy of their actions toward Black Elk's Lakota tribe at Wounded Knee creek during the 1890 massacre. The relations between the natives and the white settlers come across as a massive exercise in miscommunication and missed opportunities.
The perspective of the Indians is well provided for. Red Cloud, Black Elk, and Crazy Horse all have their actions analyzed by the sort of cool detachment Brands excels in.
The section looking at the growth of Abilene as a veritable cattle “boomtown” makes for interesting reading as well. Descriptions of cow herding and the methods used to move cattle across vast distances provides a break from discussions of labor strikes and Indian policy. This portion of American Colossus even lets Brands shoehorn in the story of Theodore Roosevelt’s life as a rancher in the Badlands of the Dakotas during the 1880s. This experience left him forced to take a massive monetary loss when many of his cattle were wiped out thanks to a bad break of inclement weather.
John Wesley Powell and George Bradley’s explorations of the American southwest provided a sneak preview of what would ultimately blossom into an early twentieth century policy of irrigation and damming to support large population growth in that region. Powell, however, was a bit before his time in his vision of the desert southwest as a region of rapid growth.
With wealth concentrating in the hands of a small number of individuals during the last third of the 1800s, attention naturally turned toward the so-called Robber Barons (or Captains of Industry as their apologists are wont to call them).
Readers who crack open American Colossus expecting to hear about the likes of J.P. Morgan, Leland Stanford, John Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and Andrew Carnegie will not see this expectation disappointed. While the latter had his reputation severely dinged courtesy of the 1892 Homestead Strike (described in the pages of American Colossus), the former twice bailed out the U.S. government. During the Cleveland and then the Teddy Roosevelt administration Morgan leaned on his financial resources and Wall Street contacts to prevent the economy from going under during a period of pre-Federal Reserve illiquidity.
And who could expect to read a book on this era without being regaled with the story of Chicago’s Great Fire of 1871? Brands makes sure to recount this awe-inspiring disaster. Or tales of the time which saw some of the highest levels of immigration in the country’s history? From the difficulties of Chinese and Irish workers finding a place in society to race riots in Memphis, Brands does justice to those on the margins of society during an age of unequally spread affluence and massive changes in the makeup of various urban populations.
The post-Reconstruction difficulties faced by African-Americans resulted in men like Booker T. Washington on one hand and W.E.B. Dubious on the other preaching different tactics for overcoming the intransience of the more propertied classes. This debate is analyzed, although Brands expends more time looking at things through more of a class than race-based dimension.
The rise of Social Darwinist ideas from the likes of William Graham Sumner and the populist ideas touted by failed presidential candidate/prairie radicals like William Jennings Bryan constitute the closing acts of American Colossus. America's flirtation with imperialism courtesy of the Spanish-American War and the subsequent insurgency in the Philippines pull the curtain down on the nineteenth century.
This book is just the sort of well-rounded walk through America’s past readers of the country’s history should expect. The balance of the presentation is commendable. The presence of individuals who are well-known alongside the inclusion of other players of a more marginal but nonetheless informative bent add to the overall strength of Brands’s book.
A fully formed grasp of the Gilded Age will be attained by reading this compelling work of nonfiction. Crucial years which constituted the formative basis for the twentieth and twenty-first century’s particular brand of capitalism are described well in the richly written pages of American Colossus.
-Andrew Canfield Denver, Colorado
December 15, 2021
Hard to imagine a better, more readable history of the late 19th century. It was the time when American industrial might steamed toward its historic levels, scrambling old social, economic and political norms. Racial too: this was the era when Reconstruction was undone as part of a shameful political bargain and a new form of oppression was invented. Labor wars broke out as yet another new form of control evolved. The era ended with the pacification of Native Americans and a shifting of our imperial sights to Hawaii, Cuba, the Philippines, Panama and beyond. Brands is just a terrific historian and storyteller.
February 2, 2017
Not a proper review, i just want to add some notes for mental connections:
- Central theme: Democracy and Capitalism. They are both protagonistic (maximize personal freedom politically and economically) and antagonistic (employ different machanism: equality and inequality). While Democracy give participants equality (1 vote each), capitalism utilizes and enhances inequality, it uses participants' unequal talent, resources and enhances the unequal reward, wealth afterwards.
Democracy and capitalism had took turn claiming the ascendency over the last two and a half century. Example: President Andrew Jackson fought capitalism by lowering tariff, smashing the bank of the US, veto federal spending on roads and canals. Capitalism fought back during civil war. Republican freed the slaves, emancipated capitalist classes from constrains imposed by Jackson and his heirs: built railroads, raised tariffs, the rise of JP Morgan during war years.
Quotes:
- Something about parties: American originally organize parties based on causes, but as causes lost the power to motivate, the parties remained. The fight over Constitution has produced America’s 1st party system of Federalist and Republican. The struggle for democracy has spawn a 2nd system of Democrats and Whigs, the 3rd Republican and Democrat.
- Something about political career in the US compared to Europe during Gilded Age. The author points out that career in politics in the US is less enticing because of 3 reasons: perception of not a exciting field of human endeavor; politics competed with dynamic branch of capitalism; political life offered few individual distinction - Congress operated with commitees and compromises. The normal interaction between democracy and human nature: Parties chooses men with safe records. This is a very brief part, and it is reasonable for the author not to dwell on. But still i feel the need for author's elaboration.
- Central figures: the famous capitalists John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan and Andrew Carnegie, Predidents.
- Notable historical episodes: the building of the transcontinental railroad, the Great Chicago fire, the Battle of Wounded Knee (Massacre), the Spanish-American war...
- Central theme: Democracy and Capitalism. They are both protagonistic (maximize personal freedom politically and economically) and antagonistic (employ different machanism: equality and inequality). While Democracy give participants equality (1 vote each), capitalism utilizes and enhances inequality, it uses participants' unequal talent, resources and enhances the unequal reward, wealth afterwards.
Democracy and capitalism had took turn claiming the ascendency over the last two and a half century. Example: President Andrew Jackson fought capitalism by lowering tariff, smashing the bank of the US, veto federal spending on roads and canals. Capitalism fought back during civil war. Republican freed the slaves, emancipated capitalist classes from constrains imposed by Jackson and his heirs: built railroads, raised tariffs, the rise of JP Morgan during war years.
Quotes:
"The capitalists controlled the government: the legislative branch, which protected their profits with tariffs and their assets with a gold standard; the executive branch, which dispatched troops to crush the capitalists’ working-class opponents; and the judicial branch, which defined dissent as conspiracy and monopoly as accepted practice. The trusts grew more numerous and powerful by the month. In the contest between capitalism and democracy, capitalism had never enjoyed such a formidable advantage.”
"The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 rescued the money supply from the hands of Morgan and others, putting it in the control of the Federal Reserve Board: No single reform ever shifted the balance between American capitalism and democracy more decisively. For the first time in history, the United States had a central bank answerable to the country’s democratic institutions.”
- Something about parties: American originally organize parties based on causes, but as causes lost the power to motivate, the parties remained. The fight over Constitution has produced America’s 1st party system of Federalist and Republican. The struggle for democracy has spawn a 2nd system of Democrats and Whigs, the 3rd Republican and Democrat.
- Something about political career in the US compared to Europe during Gilded Age. The author points out that career in politics in the US is less enticing because of 3 reasons: perception of not a exciting field of human endeavor; politics competed with dynamic branch of capitalism; political life offered few individual distinction - Congress operated with commitees and compromises. The normal interaction between democracy and human nature: Parties chooses men with safe records. This is a very brief part, and it is reasonable for the author not to dwell on. But still i feel the need for author's elaboration.
- Central figures: the famous capitalists John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan and Andrew Carnegie, Predidents.
- Notable historical episodes: the building of the transcontinental railroad, the Great Chicago fire, the Battle of Wounded Knee (Massacre), the Spanish-American war...
February 19, 2013
Just finished this 621-page book (in paperback) for today’s book discussion. Yes, I have mixed feelings.
“American Colossus” sets out to focus on The Big Three of the “The Gilded Age”: John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan and Andrew Carnegie. However, countless other characters – including multiple presidents -- enter the sweeping history covering events from 1865-1900: the building of the transcontinental railroad, the Chicago fire, the Battle of Wounded Knee, the Spanish-American war and so many more.
Brands is a wonderful storyteller. He organizes this look at history into five major parts and thematic chapters within those parts. The chapters end up being a bit like short stories because of their focus on characters and their roles in events in this era of U.S. history. (High school history teachers could find a wealth of information here to share with students through anecdotes.)
But this organization also means characters and events sometimes double back on themselves from section to section since Brands is not linear in his approach. This can be confusing, especially for someone like me who must have spent much time daydreaming in her high school U.S. history classes.
If Brand has a thesis for this work, it may be to look at how capitalism perverts democracy. On page 609, Brant writes, “Yet for all the advances in American material and cultural life, there remained a feeling that things had gone wrong…The capitalists controlled the government: the legislative branch, which protected their profits with tariffs and their assets with a gold standard; the executive branch, which dispatched troops to crush the capitalists’ working-class opponents; and the judicial branch, which defined dissent as conspiracy and monopoly as accepted practice. The trusts grew more numerous and powerful by the month. In the contest between capitalism and democracy, capitalism had never enjoyed such a formidable advantage.”
But he goes on to say, on page 618, that the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 rescued the money supply from the hands of Morgan and others, putting it in the control of the Federal Reserve Board: “No single reform ever shifted the balance between American capitalism and democracy more decisively. For the first time in history, the United States had a central bank answerable to the country’s democratic institutions.”
Since his book was published in 2010, I wish Brands had gone farther in his epilogue and interpreted the role of capitalism in our 21st Century “democracy.”
Did the Federal Reserve Act really solve this clash between capitalism and democracy? Is the U.S. government free from capitalist control of its legislative, executive and judicial branches in 2013?
I’m not so sure as it seems only the very wealthy can afford to run for public office. It also seems only natural that when push comes to shove the wealthy office-holders’ own self-interest naturally trumps what is for the good of the people.
“American Colossus” sets out to focus on The Big Three of the “The Gilded Age”: John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan and Andrew Carnegie. However, countless other characters – including multiple presidents -- enter the sweeping history covering events from 1865-1900: the building of the transcontinental railroad, the Chicago fire, the Battle of Wounded Knee, the Spanish-American war and so many more.
Brands is a wonderful storyteller. He organizes this look at history into five major parts and thematic chapters within those parts. The chapters end up being a bit like short stories because of their focus on characters and their roles in events in this era of U.S. history. (High school history teachers could find a wealth of information here to share with students through anecdotes.)
But this organization also means characters and events sometimes double back on themselves from section to section since Brands is not linear in his approach. This can be confusing, especially for someone like me who must have spent much time daydreaming in her high school U.S. history classes.
If Brand has a thesis for this work, it may be to look at how capitalism perverts democracy. On page 609, Brant writes, “Yet for all the advances in American material and cultural life, there remained a feeling that things had gone wrong…The capitalists controlled the government: the legislative branch, which protected their profits with tariffs and their assets with a gold standard; the executive branch, which dispatched troops to crush the capitalists’ working-class opponents; and the judicial branch, which defined dissent as conspiracy and monopoly as accepted practice. The trusts grew more numerous and powerful by the month. In the contest between capitalism and democracy, capitalism had never enjoyed such a formidable advantage.”
But he goes on to say, on page 618, that the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 rescued the money supply from the hands of Morgan and others, putting it in the control of the Federal Reserve Board: “No single reform ever shifted the balance between American capitalism and democracy more decisively. For the first time in history, the United States had a central bank answerable to the country’s democratic institutions.”
Since his book was published in 2010, I wish Brands had gone farther in his epilogue and interpreted the role of capitalism in our 21st Century “democracy.”
Did the Federal Reserve Act really solve this clash between capitalism and democracy? Is the U.S. government free from capitalist control of its legislative, executive and judicial branches in 2013?
I’m not so sure as it seems only the very wealthy can afford to run for public office. It also seems only natural that when push comes to shove the wealthy office-holders’ own self-interest naturally trumps what is for the good of the people.
June 11, 2015
American Colossus is a fast read because it is narrative history. Author H.W. Brands employs a huge scope to the period 1865-1900. But the book disappoints because its very premise is illogical with Brands setting this story as "capitalism" vs. "democracy". Obviously, capitalism is an economic system and democracy a political system. Most capitalist nations are democracies and most democracies employ some form of capitalism. What Brands gets at is he takes the rise of capitalism, especially monopolist and powerful corporations, as against the will of the people, hence, against "democracy".
If Brands believes Gilded Age American capitalism was anti-democratic, he never provides evidence. Public opinion surveys did not yet exist. Despite scandals like Credit Mobilier, it is difficult to argue 35 years of American elections, competitively fought between America's two dominant parties, were completely divorced from what the voters wanted. Surely, few supported the worst excesses of Rockefeller or Jay Gould, but, Brands has no evidence that the majority of American voters weren't reasonably content with the status quo and wanted only incremental change of the type found in the Sherman Act. A failing of this book is that its narrative format eschews statistics, but the paucity of data neglects that the average American experienced significant economic improvement in the period and enjoyed the new technologies developed. Presumably, these improvements help explain why the American public and its democracy didn't even support the strikes at Pullman and the Pennsylvania coal mines that Brands writes about. The people didn't want a socialist revolution, they were content with capitalism with reforms.
A surprising portion of this book is about Jim Crow, mistreatment of native Americans, bias against Chinese immigrants and other stories which aren't really about capitalism at all. It struck me that these cruel facts of Victorian America belie Brands 'democracy', too. He laments 'capitalism' winning out over 'democracy' as if 'democracy' always would mean whatever sort of social democracy Brands desires. In the real world of 1865-1900 America, 'democracy' meant Jim Crow because a majority of white Southerners, who comprised two-thirds of the Southern population, wanted to suppress black economic, political and social activity. Ditto for native Americans, Latinos and Chinese- all were minorities who suffered under white majority rule, strictly because there was too much majority-rule democracy and not enough focus on individual rights. Capitalism thrives where individual property rights are enforced. Brands fails in proving his premise that "democracy" is inherently good or that "democracy" and "capitalism" are mutually exclusive. It is unfortunate that Brands structured his book this way because there are many interesting vignettes and his literary writing style makes this a readable history.
If Brands believes Gilded Age American capitalism was anti-democratic, he never provides evidence. Public opinion surveys did not yet exist. Despite scandals like Credit Mobilier, it is difficult to argue 35 years of American elections, competitively fought between America's two dominant parties, were completely divorced from what the voters wanted. Surely, few supported the worst excesses of Rockefeller or Jay Gould, but, Brands has no evidence that the majority of American voters weren't reasonably content with the status quo and wanted only incremental change of the type found in the Sherman Act. A failing of this book is that its narrative format eschews statistics, but the paucity of data neglects that the average American experienced significant economic improvement in the period and enjoyed the new technologies developed. Presumably, these improvements help explain why the American public and its democracy didn't even support the strikes at Pullman and the Pennsylvania coal mines that Brands writes about. The people didn't want a socialist revolution, they were content with capitalism with reforms.
A surprising portion of this book is about Jim Crow, mistreatment of native Americans, bias against Chinese immigrants and other stories which aren't really about capitalism at all. It struck me that these cruel facts of Victorian America belie Brands 'democracy', too. He laments 'capitalism' winning out over 'democracy' as if 'democracy' always would mean whatever sort of social democracy Brands desires. In the real world of 1865-1900 America, 'democracy' meant Jim Crow because a majority of white Southerners, who comprised two-thirds of the Southern population, wanted to suppress black economic, political and social activity. Ditto for native Americans, Latinos and Chinese- all were minorities who suffered under white majority rule, strictly because there was too much majority-rule democracy and not enough focus on individual rights. Capitalism thrives where individual property rights are enforced. Brands fails in proving his premise that "democracy" is inherently good or that "democracy" and "capitalism" are mutually exclusive. It is unfortunate that Brands structured his book this way because there are many interesting vignettes and his literary writing style makes this a readable history.
April 30, 2011
Fantastic book. Quite readable, perhaps a bit too easy in parts. I really enjoyed Brands's use of primary accounts. He also really made the Chicago fire come to life. Brands also, I think, strikes a fine balance between the dual issues of capitalism and democracy (he plays on that theme, with the rising influence of one or the other, throughout the book). The supporters of all sides are presented in ways that most of them would not mind. The power barons of the times, like Morgan, Rockefeller, and Carnegie, are portrayed as smart and incredibly hardworking creators of wealth for themselves and opportunity for the masses, but Brands does not ignore the realities of the difficult lives the masses had to suffer through. Likewise, readers will come across lots of stories of American progress that every patriot rejoices in, while also having to read the accounts of the westward imperial march that was cruelly devastating to so many others. Perhaps the balanced evenhandedness of the book will make it unappealing to the most unappealing ideologues among us, but for the overwhelming majority of Americans this book strikes a fair and fine balance. I read somewhere (probably wikipedia) that this book was supposed to be part of the Oxford History of the US for the period of the post-Civil War world up to 1900. In the acknowledgments section, Brands gives a shout out to David Kennedy, the editor of the Oxford series and mentions how the book went in a direction neither of them anticipated. So there is a ring of truth to what I have read. Frankly, if the book I read was the very book that was intended for the series, then I completely understand why Kennedy rejected it: Colossus simply doesn't measure up to the other volumes, like Kennedy's own on the Great Depression/New Deal, or McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom, or Howe's What Hath God Wrought. Colossus is much too light to fit into that series. (It's also possible, however, that if the book was rejected, that Brands and his new publisher decided to further water it down for a more general readership.) Still, it's a book well worth reading and it should make our mouths water for the official Oxford volume on this same period.
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