A nimble history of the stock market’s collapse centers on the upper crust.
An affluent age abruptly ends.
Sorkin’s chronicle of economic calamity is well-versed in the language of high finance and laser-focused on the rich and influential. Bankers and lawmakers share the limelight with actors and statesmen seeking Wall Street wealth. The countless unsung Americans wrecked by the October 1929 stock market crash and its aftermath are seldom heard from. This may frustrate some readers, but it’s not an oversight, as Sorkin unapologetically—and not unreasonably—opts to concentrate on power players. As the New York Times columnist and CNBC host explains, the “bloodbath” was triggered by chicanery, “easy credit” and the market’s “general opacity.” During the run-up to the crash, bankers and affluent investors formed “stock pools.” These were a legal but “devious and unfair” way to furtively accumulate “shares in a given company,” “artificially” raising the stock’s value. Some market speculators tried to boost profits by “luring small-time speculators into” their “elaborate market schemes.” By the early 1930s, thousands of banks had failed, leaving many millions unemployed, homeless, or hungry. It’s a feature, not a bug, that this large group of people remains in the background. Sorkin announces this narrative choice at the outset, presenting a cast list dominated by bankers, politicians, regulators, and other well-connected sorts—those whose fingerprints were on the collapse. His leading figures are prominent men whom history has rendered one-dimensional, verdicts Sorkin aims to reveal as incomplete. Banker Charles Mitchell’s maneuvering got him in legal trouble and was blamed for the crash, but Sorkin suggests he merits “more nuanced consideration.” Senator Carter Glass was celebrated for 1933 legislation that protected less-wealthy bank customers by disentangling commercial and investment banking. But he only grudgingly OK’d “key elements of his own bill.” For their part, Groucho Marx and Winston Churchill took a bath when the crash came. It’s a narrow segment of society but one whose experiences Sorkin capably recounts.
A nimble history of the stock market’s collapse centers on the upper crust.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9780593296967
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 3, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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