The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance

Ron Chernow

Grove/Atlantic, Inc., Mar 16, 2010 - Business & Economics - 1278 pages

The National Book Award–winning history of American finance by the renowned biographer and author of Hamilton: "A tour de force" ( New York Times Book Review).

The House of Morgan is a panoramic story of four generations in the powerful Morgan family and their secretive firms that would transform the modern financial world. Tracing the trajectory of J. P. Morgan's empire from its obscure beginnings in Victorian London to the financial crisis of 1987, acclaimed author Ron Chernow paints a fascinating portrait of the family's private saga and the rarefied world of the American and British elite in which they moved—a world that included Charles Lindbergh, Henry Ford, Franklin Roosevelt, Nancy Astor, and Winston Churchill.

A masterpiece of financial history—it was awarded the 1990 National Book Award for Nonfiction and selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 Best Nonfiction Books of the Twentieth Century— The House of Morgan is a compelling account of a remarkable institution and the men who ran it. It is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the money and power behind the major historical events of the last 150 years.

About the author

Educated at Yale and Cambridge University in England, Ron Chernow is a biographer who specializes in hard-hitting exposes on historical business figures. Among Chernow's early accomplishments was his unmasking of corruption in Chinatown for New York magazine in 1973. In the book The House of Morgan, winner of the National Book Award in 1990, Chernow outlines the extraordinary path of J.P. Morgan's empire and its influence on the American banking industry. Chernow is also the author of Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, which chronicles the life and times of the richest man in the United States in the early 1900s. His other work includes The Warburgs, The Death of a Banker, Alexander Hamilton, Washington: A Life, and Grant. Chernow is regular guest on the National Public Radio programs Fresh Air with Terry Gross and All Things Considered.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance
• Author: Ron Chernow
• Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 2010
• ISBN: 0802198139, 9780802198136
• Length: 1278 pages
• Subjects: Business & Economics / Banks & Banking; History / United States / General