Eyewitness to Wall Street: 400 Years of Dreamers, Schemers, Busts and Booms

by David Colbert

Drawing on diaries, private letters, memoirs, and reportage, David Colbert's acclaimed Eyewitness books offer extraordinary first-hand views of history's pivotal moments. Eyewitness to Wall Street's... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0767906608
• ISBN13: 9780767906609
• Release Date: August 2001
• Publisher: Broadway Books
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.62 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.5" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Excellent! A must read for any investor

I completed this 369 page "story book" in two days. It had been so interesting that I just could not put it down. It's no exaggeration to regard it as a story book. Somehow the reality is more harsh and crueler than fictitious TV drama and movies, and the history of the investment world is surely no exception. Back to the book. This is in fact an excellent collection of writings from books, journals amd newspapers of different witnesses to the author's selection of major debacles of the past four centuries. There are twelve parts of unequal period, with a timeline of critical incidents in the beginning of each part, followed by selected witness reports as mentioned above. Certainly, not everything could be accounted detailedly (so I would like to recommend "Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation by Edward Chancellor", a book that dug deeper but not as wide) but readers certainly would have a very correct idea of what went wrong. As a CFA charterholder (not yet, passed all three levels of exam but not paid the fees), I strongly recommend AIMR to put this book into the required list of reading to warn its members of the limitation of the financial techniques or theories or calculations or integrity stuff we try to preach. Anyway, a must read for anyone, especially serious players!p.s. One minor drawback: Soros was not there. He should have been.

see the brilliance of wall street's greats

this book gives you a window look into the brilliance of wall streets finest players , as well as the big scammers. this book gave me a better knowledge of how the market works and how the economic cycle is always repeating itself. it gave you a nice history into how wall street was established and how it evolved into the market it is today.

Highly Recommended!

Editor David Colbert collected a multitude of printed source material - diaries, private letters, memoirs and articles - that spans 400 years, and, as the title promises, provides plenty of accounts from eyewitnesses to Wall Street. Organized chronologically, the book also includes Colbert's timelines and his original introductions for each piece. Divided into sections that reflect every era, the book is an insightful and often hilarious romp through financial history. We [...] recommend this book to all readers - there's something here for everyone, even if you don't think you give a hoot about the stock market. Colbert's collection is a sweeping, unusual look at social, economic, political and cultural history.

Terrific -- very enjoyable and informative

I don't work in finance, but I found Eyewitness to Wall Street very enjoyable and informative. It's a sweep of stories that captures the impact of Wall Street over the centuries -- and this subject seems even more relevant after the terrorist attacks that attempted to end the Street's intense vitality. This book does a wonderful job of defining and explaining, and thoughtfully celebrating, that vitality.