Steve Fraser: Wall Street: A Cultural History

If this financial crisis has engendered any wonderment about the history of Wall Street connivers and charlatans, do yourself a favour and seek out this book.

If this financial crisis has engendered any wonderment about the history of Wall Street connivers and charlatans, do yourself a favour and seek out Steve Fraser's shimmering Wall Street: A Cultural History. While books such as Liar's Poker, The Bonfire of the Vanities and American Psycho bitingly document the shenanigans of some of the street's most avaricious villains and most epic busts, Mr Fraser's book is valuable because it adds continuity to the equation, tracing the growth of America's financial system from its origins amid the hubbub of 17th-century New York's mercantile community. Fraser delivers context in spades. As he charts the rise and fall of Wall Street characters in the global psyche - alongside the reputation of the street itself - it gradually becomes clear that this crisis can hardly be classed with blow-ups like the Panic of 1857, during which more than 1,000 banks closed, or the crash of 1873, which touched off a six-year depression. If you think this one is the big one, you could be right. As you'll learn from Wall Street, though, we're not there yet.

What makes Mr Fraser's effort especially appealing over and above the context it provides is its focus on financial culture. The street, he brilliantly argues, has occupied a shifting and ambiguous place in the moral calculus of investors and market-watchers over the years. Seen as both a channel for greed and as the hammering heart of American capitalist enterprise, it has perennially defied final verdicts. It's either a den of thieves like Bernie Madoff or a hothouse of titans like J.P. Morgan. Which is right depends largely on whom and when you ask.

Mr Fraser wrote his book well before the global credit crunch hit two years ago, but it's a far more gripping read right now than when it came out in 2005. You'll be comforted to discover that this time around it's not quite as bad as it was in on Black Friday in 1869 or the 1907 panic. Yet you'll also leave the book with a discomfiting sense that financial history has a dizzying knack for repeating itself.

Publisher: Faber & Faber, 2005