History's great men of business are rarely treated to first-rate biographies. Readers prefer the grandeur of kings and the glory of generals. There are exceptions, such as Niall Ferguson's fine study of the Rothschilds and Ron Chernow's of J.D. Rockefeller, but these are few and far between. Whole swaths of our economic past have been exiled to specialist literature. This is regrettable, because nothing reveals more about a society than its methods of getting and spending money. Perhaps our new era of global bankruptcy, boardroom malfeasance and petulant "occupiers" will give popular economic history the boost it deserves.

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