Rainbow's End: The Crash of 1929 (Pivotal Moments in American History) - Hardcover

Klein, Maury

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195135164 ISBN 13: 9780195135169

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2001

Synopsis

The first major history of the Crash in over a decade, Rainbow's End tells the story of the stock market collapse in a colorful, swift-moving narrative that blends a vivid portrait of the 1920s with an intensely gripping account of Wall Street's greatest catastrophe.
The book offers a vibrant picture of a world full of plungers, powerful bankers, corporate titans, millionaire brokers, and buoyantly optimistic stock market bulls. We meet Sunshine Charley Mitchell, head of the National City Bank, powerful financiers Jack Morgan and Jacob Schiff, Wall Street manipulators such as the legendary Jesse Livermore, and the lavish-living Billy Durant, founder of General Motors. As Klein follows the careers of these men, he shows us how the financial house of cards gradually grew taller, as the irrational exuberance of an earlier age gripped America and convinced us that the market would continue to rise forever. Then, in October 1929, came a "perfect storm"-like convergence of factors that shook Wall Street to its foundations. We relive Black Thursday, when police lined Wall Street, brokers grew hysterical, customers "bellowed like lunatics," and the ticker tape fell hours behind. This is followed by the even worse Bloody Tuesday, when an irrational desire to sell at any price gripped the market and even blue chip stocks plummeted precariously.
This compelling history of the Crash--the first to follow the market closely for the two years leading up to the disaster--illuminates a major turning point in our history.

About this title

About the Author:

Maury Klein is Professor of History at the University of Rhode Island and one of the most acclaimed historians of American business at work today. He is the author of many books, including The Life and Legend of Jay Gould (a Pulitzer Prize finalist), Unfinished Business: The Railroad in American Life, and Days of Defiance: Sumter, Secession, and the Coming of the Civil War.

Review:

"Klein tells the story of the crash clearly and well, with some especially good pen portraits of characters such as Thomas Lamont, Jesse Livermore, Charley Mitchell and Albert Wiggin (who actually made money short-selling)."--The Economist

"Land crooks...delusional bank chairman...high-rolling speculators.... The woes of the local shoe-shine man and Groucho Marx get mentioned, too.... Klein offers a swift survey of the lunatic optimism of Wall Street and how it all turned to dust in the closing days of October.... Each chapter resonates with the follies of today."--Wall Street Journal

"A remarkable blend of sharp-eyed business history and keen cultural analysis, Rainbow's End paints the most compelling picture yet of the stock-market crash of 1929. In Maury Klein's able hands, the story of the crash ends up illuminating not just Wall Street in the Jazz Age, but America as well. Boom and bust: Klein gives us both, in all their intoxicating and hysterical glory."--James Surowiecki, Business Columnist, The New Yorker

"Well-written, entertaining and detailed.... Klein shows how optimism gradually spawned financial euphoria."--Robert J. Samuelson, The New York Times Book Review

"The great crash of 1929 was one of those sharp breaks in the stream of time when all who were living knew immediately that their world had changed. Many, of course, have written of the crash, but few as well or as authoritatively as Maury Klein in Rainbow's End. He brings a historian's perspective to a complex story while retaining the sense of immediacy that made those terrible days some of the most exciting in American history."--John Steele Gordon, author of The Great Game: The Emergence of Wall Street As a World Power

"A well-written, comprehensible assessment of the 1929 stock -market crash. Klein is an elegant constructor of business histories, and one can read dire warnings between the lines here. A most timely business narrative." --Kirkus

"Klein helps readers better understand the reaction of millions to an event that shook the world.... A timely publication."--Library Journal

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0195135164
• ISBN 13: 9780195135169
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368