WALL STREET: A Story of Fortunes and Finance

Far from another dry, mechanical explanation of how the stock exchange works, this is an anecdotal history of the wheelings and dealings conducted there since the days when continental papers were traded under that famous tree. Mostly it is the history of skulduggery from the crude maneuvers of cunning ""rascal"" Daniel Drew, who endowed Drew University in New Jersey, to the more sophisticated manipulation of the ""kingly"" J. P. Morgan. Rail mania, gold bugs, pyramiding, and varying relationships with the White House are the subjects of some of Faber's stories. World War I, she reports, made Wall Street the financial capital of the world, World War II moved the control center to Washington, and now electronics might do away with the need for any geographic center--though the book ends with the words of an anonymous financial journalist, pressed by Faber to state whether Wall Street is ""still necessary in this age of computers"": ""I guess so."" Colorful and entertaining, this will still leave young readers with a better understanding of how things work than will the usual definition-ridden visit to the floor.