Here is a list of the top 100 financial history books as voted by members of the Museum of Finance. Top ten are listed below with the summary, followed by a list of the other 90 – enjoy!
If you like financial/investing books check out this investing book resource page of ours where we frequently list (and regularly update) top investment books as recommended by readers, famous investors etc. Click link here to see more.
Financial History Books #1: Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
Author: Edwin LeFevre
Year of Publication 1923
Still in print 88 years after first being published, there is no small irony that the top-ranked book on this list is, technically, fiction; nor that it exposes the wretched excess and carnival atmosphere of the financial markets. Has nothing changed? How far from this cautionary tale have we come? Michael Milken? Bernie Madoff? Those miscreants were real, as was trader Jesse Lauriston Livermore, the thinly-disguised subject of Reminiscences. In the tradition of Daniel Drew, Livermore was a bear raider, known as The Great Plunger, a sewer of fictional value and confidence. The quality of Reminiscences, however, is palpably real. The language, while a little dense, is redolent of the age, and the chapter format is practically a how-to guide.
Financial History Books #2: The Big Short
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine
Author: Michael Lewis
Year of Publication 2010
Journalism is called the first draft of history. This recent book, destined to become a definitive classic of our time, is one of those rare cases where the same reporter who did the original work also got to go back and finish the job. Lewis details — clearly and thoroughly — the backstory of how the demons of financial engineering like collateralized debt obligations were first summoned and then escaped into the wider economy. This is a brave and unapologetic work, proving two things: that people dealing with billions of dollars in someone else’s money should take a Hippocratic Oath, and also that in some reporting there is not such thing as objectivity, only fairness. If that strays from the sepia-toned view of journalism then Lewis restores the luster with his exhaustive research and corroboration. Reading it is like reading The Guns of August: the outcome is known, but the venality and callousness and that lead to it are gut-wrenching.
Financial History Books #3: Manias, Panics, and Crashes
Manias, Panics and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises
Author: Charles Kindleberger
Year of Publication 1978
To laugh or cry? Kindleberger is a mighty foil to the prevailing moods of the dismal science: even the best books on financial history tend to be deadly earnest or tediously self-righteous. Manias is clever, witty, wry. If we are all fools for love, we are also fools for money. To be sure, the scholarship is as rigorous as any other work on this list. But it is delightful in that all this insight and analysis comes through a light turn of phrase and fluid writing. Dick Sylla, chairman of the Museum’s board of trustees, wrote of the current, fifth edition: “What long has been the best history of financial pathologies is now even better. The reader who absorbs Kindleberger’s lessons will be prepared to foresee and navigate the financial crises that surely lie ahead. Like a true classic, Manias is both timely and timeless.”
Financial History Books #4: A Monetary History of the United States 1867–1960
A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960
Author: Milton Friedman and Anna Jacobson Schwartz
Year of Publication 1963
Find “definitive” and “authoritative” in the dictionary and there will be a picture of this book. In March 2004 then Fed Governor Ben S. Bernanke delivered the H. Parker Willis Lecture in Economic Policy at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. He said of this book, “Friedman and Schwartz offered important new evidence and arguments about the role of monetary factors in the Great Depression. In contradiction to the prevalent view of the time, that money and monetary policy played at most a purely passive role in the Depression, Friedman and Schwartz argued that ‘the [economic] contraction is in fact a tragic testimonial to the importance of monetary forces.’” Bernanke’s homage is remarkable in light of the fact that Friedman and Schwarz are fearless and assertive in their critique of the Federal Reserve through and after the Crash of 1929.
Financial History Books #5: Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
Author Charles Mackay
Year of Publication 1841
In his introduction Mackay writes of “whims and peculiarities,” as if he were referring to fashion or music. He then cites the Crusades and witch hunts as deadly examples of mania and social madness. This fondly familiar classic was the original financial history for broad audiences. The voice is avuncular, the tone gently chiding. Mackay finds our financial faults lie not within our stars but within ourselves. Still in print, it encourages investors in a solid Victorian mindset to rise above their base nature and be creatures of thought rather than instinctive fear and greed. The quotable line, to use a film reference is: “Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.”
Financial History Books #6: Alexander Hamilton
Author: Ron Chernow
Year of Publication 2004
When have 730 pages ever flown by so quickly? Hamilton is the patron saint of American enterprise, and here Chernow has given him the definitive biography. It tells enough of the times so that the life is related all the more finely. The writing is brisk and accessible, but is rich in vocabulary. Chernow is clearly an admirer of Hamilton, but the presentation is fair and balanced, not glossing over any of the man’s misjudgments. Other biographers have tended to emphasize Hamilton’s war record — he led the charge at Yorktown — and on the battles over assumption. Chernow honors those but gives full glory to Hamilton’s role as President Washington’s most trusted advisor, and also as a key enabler of the Constitution—far beyond just his role in writing the Federalist Papers. (full review in Financial History, issue 86, Fall 2004).
Financial History Books #7: Enough: True Measures of Money, Business, and Life
Enough: True Measures of Money, Business, and Life
Author: John C. Bogle
Year of Publication: 2008
Like Theodore Roosevelt, John Bogle is both a wealthy man, and a harsh critic of the malefactors of great wealth (as TR called them). For the founder of the multi-squillion-dollar Vanguard Funds, Bogle decries the “counting culture” in America. He delights in calling earnings-per-share, slavishly followed as The Number, as essentially fictitious. Bogle talks about character, and societal issues and outrage. Bogle lays bare the insatiable avarice that drives financial operators to ever-greater levels of cost and complexity. Not the kind of thing that Captains of Industry usually bother with. Yet no less a stalwart than Barron’s praised Enough, saying it it was “a rabble-rousing, world-changing work like Common Sense and The Communist Manifesto.”
Financial History Books #8: The Intelligent Investor
Author: Benjamin Graham
Year of Publication: 1949
Before there was Buffett, there was Graham. First published in 1949, the Sage of Omaha read it the following year when he was 19 and has since called it “by far the best book on investing ever written.” The revised edition, updated and featuring commentary from Jason Zweig, member of this magazine’s editorial board, is indeed enhanced with contemporary examples and perspectives. Still, it is the timeless simplicity, the elemental nature of value investing, that is the bedrock of Graham. In sharp contrast to the popular guides for “dummies” and “idiots” today, Graham treats his readers with respect. Chapters 16, “Four Extremely Instructive Case Histories,” and 17, “A Comparison of Eight Pairs of Companies,” could easily be read just for fun. It might also be noted that with more than a million copies in print, this durable and modest effort has in all likelihood outsold all the other 99 books on the list combined.
Financial History Books #9: The Wealth of Nations
Author: Adam Smith
Year of Publication: 1776
The granddaddy of them all. Literally an epic when the ink was still wet on the Declaration of Independence, the first printing sold out in mere months. This is the fountainhead from which all the others spring. It influenced the American and French Revolutions. It is to economics what Newton was the mathematics and Darwin to biology. Of all the 100 books listed here, it is the one most likely to be familiar to a person in the street. To the people in The Street, and in The City, it is secular scripture. To be sure, the writing is in and of its time. Economics as a discipline did not exist, and the term capitalism had to await its coining by Marx. So the reading can be slow going. But this is granular. The essential, elemental principles are identified and their interactions detailed. Modern critics note that there are internal inconsistencies, which is true. But like physicists testing Einstein, the harder the critics work to prove one small point in error, the more they uphold the greater body of the work.
Financial History Books #10: Ten Years of Wall Street
Ten years in Wall street; or, Revelations of inside life and experience on ‘change
Author: William Worthington Fowler
Year of Publication: 0000
A magnificent first-hand account, teeming with period color and featuring one of the most beautiful passages ever written on any subject: “No one who has entered the precincts of the stock exchange will have failed to notice certain nondescripts who constantly frequent the market. They are men who have seen better days, but having dropt their money in the street, come there every day as if they hoped to find it in the same place. These characters are the ghosts of the market, fixing their lack-lustre eyes upon it, and pointing their skinny fingers at it, as if they would say, ‘thou hast done this!’ They flit about the door-ways, and haunt the vestibules of the exchange, seedy of coat, blackingless of boot, unkempt, unwashed, unshorn, wearing on their worn, haggard faces a smile more melancholy than tears.”
List Of The Top 100 Financial History Books
Ahamed, Liaquat Lords of Finance, 2009
Barnum, P.T. The Art of Money Getting, 1880
Barskin, Jonathon and Miranti, Paul A History of Corporate Finance, 1997
Berle, Adolf and Means, Gardner The Modern Corporation and Private Property, 1932
Bernstein, Peter Against the Gods, 1998
Bernstein, Peter The Power of Gold, 2004
Bogle, John Enough!, 2008
Brock, Leslie The Currency of the American Colonies, 1700–1764, 1975
Brooks, Robert Once In Golconda, 1969
Burrough, Bryan and Helyar, John Barbarians at the Gate, 1989
Carosso, Vincent The Morgans, 1987
Chancellor, Edward Devil Take the Hindmost, 2000
Chernow, Ron Alexander Hamilton, 2004
Chernow, Ron Titan, 2004
Clason, George S. The Richest Man in Babylon, 1955
Clews, Henry Fifty Years in Wall Street, 1908
Cohan, William D. House of Cards, 2009
Dash, Mike Batavia’s Graveyard, 2003
De Roover, Raymond The Rise and Fall of the Medici Bank, 1963
DePew, Chauncey M. 100 Years of American Commerce, 1895
Drucker, Peter The Age of Discontinuity, 1969
Ferguson, Niall The Ascent of Money, 2008
Ferguson, Niall Empire, 2004
Ferguson, Niall Colossus, 2005
Fisher, Irving The Stock Market Crash and After, 1930
Fleming, Thomas The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers, 2010
William Worthington Ten Years in Wall Street or, Revelations of Inside Life and Experience on ‘Change, 1870
Fraser, Steve Every Man a Speculator, 2005
Friedman, Milton Capitalism and Freedom, 1962
Friedman, Milton and Schwartz, Anna Jacobson A Monetary History of the United States 1867–1960, 1963
Galbraith, John Kenneth Money, 1975
Gambee, Robert Wall Street: Financial Capital, 2002
Geisst, Charles 100 Years of Wall Street, 2000
Geisst, Charles Wall Street: A History, 1997
Graham, Benjamin The Intelligent Investor, 1949
Graham, Benjamin and Dodd, David Security Analysis, 1934
Grant, James Mr. Market Miscalculates, 2008
Griffin, G. Edward The Creature from Jekyll Island, 1994
Hammond, Bray Banks and Politics in America from the Revolution to the Civil War, 1957
Homer, Sidney and Sylla, Richard A History of Interest Rates, 2005
Johnson, Simon 13 Bankers, 2010
Kane, Thomas P. The Romance and Tragedy of Banking, 1923
Kaufman, Henry The Road to Financial Reformation, 2009
Kindleberger, Charles Manias, Panics, and Crashes, 1978
Klein, Maury Rainbow’s End: The Crash of 1929, 2001
Kneen, Brewster Invisible Giant, 1995
Koehn, Nancy (editor) The Story of American Business, 2009
Kritzler, Edward Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean , 2008
Lanier, Henry A Century of Banking: 1822–1922, 1922
LeFevre, Edwin Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, 1923
Levy, Leon and Linden, Eugene The Mind of Wall Street, 2004
Lewis, Michael The Big Short, 2010
Lewis, Michael Liar’s Poker, 1989
Lewis, Reginald; Walker, Blair and Price, Hugh Why Should White Guys Have All the Fun?, 1994
Little, Jeffery and Rhodes, Lucien Understanding Wall Street, 1991
Livingston, J.A. The American Stockholder, 1958
Lowenstein, Roger When Genius Failed, 2000
Mackay, Charles Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, 1841
Maybury, Richard What Ever Happened to Penny Candy? (5th Ed), 2004
Mayer, Martin The Greatest-Ever Bank Robbery, 1990
Mayer, Martin The Bankers, 1974
McDonald, Lawrence G. A Colossal Failure of Common Sense, 2009
McElvaine, Robert S. The Great Depression, 1984
McGee, Suzanne Chasing Goldman Sachs, 2010
McLean, Bethany and Elkind, Peter The Smartest Guys in The Room, 2004
Medbery, James Knowles Men and Mysteries of Wall Street, 1870
Moody, John The Art of Wise Investing, 1904
Niall, Ferguson High Financier, 2010
Partnoy, Frank The Match King, 2009
Prestbo, John Markets Measure, 1999
Rizek, Martin and Medvecky, Barbara; Joanne The Financial District’s Lost Neighborhood, 2004
Rogoff, Kenneth and Reinhart, Carmen This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, 2009
Schwed, Jr., Fred Where Are the Customers’ Yachts?, 1940
Shaw, Bernard The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism, 1928
Shiller, Robert The New Financial Order, 2003
Shorto, Russell The Island at the Center of the World, 2005
Slack, Charles Hetty, 2005
Smith, Adam The Wealth of Nations, 1776
Smith, Martin Hale Twenty Years Among the Bulls and Bears of Wall Street, 1870
Smith, Adam The Money Game, 1968
Sobel, Robert The Great Bull Market, 1968
Sobel, Robert The Money Manias, 1973
Steele Gordon, John The Great Game, 2009
Steele Gordon, John An Empire of Wealth, 2004
Steele Gordon, John Hamilton’s Blessing, 1998
Steele Gordon, John A Thread Across the Ocean, 2002
Stewart, James Den of Thieves, 1991
Stiles, T.J. The First Tycoon, 2009
Strouse, Jean Morgan: American Financier, 1999
Taleb, Nassim Nicholas The Black Swan, 2007
Tarbell, Ida The History of the Standard Oil Company, 1904
Walker, David M. Comeback America, 2010
Winans, Kenneth G. Investment Atlas, 2008
Wright, Robert E. The First Wall Street, 2005
Wright, Robert E. One Nation Under Debt, 2008
Wright, Robert and Cowen, David Financial Founding Fathers, 2006
Yergin, Daniel The Prize, 1991
Zuckerman, Gregory The Greatest Trade Ever, 2010
Zuckoff, Mitchell Ponzi’s Scheme, 2006
Zweig, Jason The Little Book of Safe Money, 2009