The Merchant of Power: Sam Insull, Thomas Edison, and the Creation of the Modern Metropolis, by John F. Wasik
We discuss you likewise the means to obtain this book The Merchant Of Power: Sam Insull, Thomas Edison, And The Creation Of The Modern Metropolis, By John F. Wasik without visiting the book shop. You can continuously visit the web link that we provide and also all set to download and install The Merchant Of Power: Sam Insull, Thomas Edison, And The Creation Of The Modern Metropolis, By John F. Wasik When many individuals are hectic to seek fro in guide shop, you are extremely simple to download the The Merchant Of Power: Sam Insull, Thomas Edison, And The Creation Of The Modern Metropolis, By John F. Wasik here. So, exactly what else you will choose? Take the inspiration right here! It is not only supplying the best book The Merchant Of Power: Sam Insull, Thomas Edison, And The Creation Of The Modern Metropolis, By John F. Wasik yet likewise the ideal book collections. Right here we consistently give you the very best as well as easiest way.
The Merchant of Power: Sam Insull, Thomas Edison, and the Creation of the Modern Metropolis, by John F. Wasik
Free Ebook PDF Online The Merchant of Power: Sam Insull, Thomas Edison, and the Creation of the Modern Metropolis, by John F. Wasik
A timely rags-to-riches story, The Merchant of Power recounts how Sam Insull--right hand to Thomas Edison--went on to become one of the richest men in the world, pivotal in the birth of General Electric and instrumental in the creation of the modern metropolis with his invention of the power grid, which still fuels major cities today. John Wasik, awarded the National Press Club Award for Consumer Journalism, had unprecedented access to Sam Insull's archives, which include private correspondence with Thomas Edison. The extraordinary fall of a man extraordinary for his time is revealed in this cautionary tale about the excesses of corporate power.
The Merchant of Power: Sam Insull, Thomas Edison, and the Creation of the Modern Metropolis, by John F. Wasik - Amazon Sales Rank: #398540 in eBooks
- Published on: 2015-06-30
- Released on: 2015-06-30
- Format: Kindle eBook
The Merchant of Power: Sam Insull, Thomas Edison, and the Creation of the Modern Metropolis, by John F. Wasik From Publishers Weekly Sam Insull is the forgotten energy tycoon of the early 20th century. As Wasik, a columnist for Bloomberg News, relates, Insull came to America from England in 1881 with $200 in his pocket to be Thomas Edison's private secretary and died in a Paris metro station in 1938 with 84 cents in his pocket. In between, he helped Edison light up New York and moved to Chicago, where he built a corporate empire that raised his personal worth to over $150 million ($1.7 billion in today's dollars); then he lost everything in the Great Depression. The collapse of his companies made him the bête noire of thousands of his now destitute Chicago shareholders and, according to the author, a model for Orson Welles's Citizen Kane. Wasik notes that Insull was instrumental in two fundamental shifts in American history: first, his innovations in the delivery of electric power made possible the consumer age; second, the failure of his financial empire became a basis for the New Deal laws that now govern much of corporate America. Wasik writes well, and Insull is a complex man whose life and times make worthwhile reading. B&w photos. (Mar. 16) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review "Brilliant . . . brings Insull back to complicated life, and should revive interest in a forgotten giant."--Chicago Sun-Times "[A] focused look at one of the most interesting historical figures you've never heard of . . . a fascinating cautionary tale."--Fortune "Does a fine job of telling the early story of utilities, moguls and scandal."--Chicago Tribune "One of the most magnetic and powerful con artists of the Great Depression was Sam Insull. Patron of the arts, philanthropist and Thomas Edison's right hand, he shafted thousands of investors large and small. . . . I found the work of John Wasik not only personally enthralling but an informal history of that traumatic time."--Studs Terkel "[A] bittersweet biography of one of the titans of American industry, business and finance . . . Highly readable. . . ."--Fort Worth Star-Telegram "Wasik writes well, and Insull is a complex man whose life and times makes worthwhile reading."--Publishers Weekly"Bloomberg News columnist John Wasik points out in a new biography, Merchant of Power, Insull started as the financial manager for a big man--not Ken Lay, but Thomas Edison. . . ."--The New York Sun"Wasik [has] taken his cue from current corporate scandals such as Enron and WorldCom in deciding to pluck Insull from semiobscurity, as many of Insull's contemporaries (including FDR) believed him to be guilty (he was acquitted) of orchestrating the first large-scale corporate deception."--Library Journal
About the Author John F. Wasik is one of America's most prominent business and finance journalists and the author of nine books on investing. His column for Bloomberg News, the world's third largest news service, is read in more than 400 newspapers worldwide in five continents.
Where to Download The Merchant of Power: Sam Insull, Thomas Edison, and the Creation of the Modern Metropolis, by John F. Wasik
Most helpful customer reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful. Edison Invented, and Insull (Who?) Delivered. By Rob Hardy Everyone knows the inspired inventor Thomas Edison. Edison was a classic rumpled genius, driven in his eagerness to invent but sloppy in his other habits. He was devoted to the technical aspects of his gadgets, but he had little head for business or making those gadgets pay. The business of his endeavors was as unkempt as his clothing, but lucky for him, he had a young ally to help get his books in order. Samuel Insull, in contrast to Edison, is barely remembered today, but he had a huge role in making the modern world through the electrical inventions that Edison churned out. He was driven to make electricity pay, and he did so in millions of dollars, using all the dubious financial levers through the 1920's until it all went wrong. In _The Merchant of Power: Sam Insull, Thomas Edison, and the Creation of the Modern Metropolis_ (Palgrave), John F. Wasik, a journalist in business and finance, has told Insull's story, one full of ambition and financial spectacle, and leading to the sort of ruin contemporary readers will recognize in, say, the Enron scandal.Insull was born in London in 1859. He scrambled to improve himself as ever any Horatio Alger hero did, and won his way to New York as Edison's private secretary. His ability to work right through the night and get by on catnaps ingratiated himself to his new boss. As Insull took a firmer grasp of Edison's technological advances, he centered on one in particular, the distribution of electricity that could power the lights and other inventions that Edison had produced. He went on literally to electrify Chicago, using huge generators never imagined before. He initiated the metering of power and other financial innovations, not all of them strictly on the up and up. He actually fled America when the bust of the Depression came, tooling around Europe to avoid extradition. Eventually, he could not avoid coming back and facing trial for fraud. A brilliant defense expounded on his rags-to-riches life story and made credible the idea that although he had brought down thousands of investors, no one had fallen as low as he had himself, and that his financial machinations had been for the purpose of preserving his stockholders' fortunes, failing merely because everything was failing. He was acquitted, but he remained a useful enemy for Franklin Delano Roosevelt's campaign against "big power".Insull may be forgotten, but the foresight of his role in the electrification of America deserves recognition. He was a major influence in the arts, too, but not in the way he would have wanted in promoting the Grand Opera that was fashionable for patronage in his day. Insull did promote the dramatic career of his wife, well beyond her years or capacity. Herman Mankiewicz had started a venomous review of one of her performances in New York, got drunk, passed out on his typewriter, and couldn't finish the review. When it came time to write the script of _Citizen Kane_, Mankiewicz included the incident as part of Kane's sad advocacy for his wife's opera career. Insull served physically as well, as one of the models for Kane; Orson Welles handed his makeup man a picture of Insull, with his brush mustache, and wanted to look as much like him as possible. It's quite the legacy, but Wasik's book presents a memorable picture of the original, as well as the technological and social life of Chicago in his times.
11 of 13 people found the following review helpful. He Enabled the Construction of Cities By John Matlock This is a rags-to-riches-to-rags story. Sam Insull came to the US with $200, got a job with Thomas Edison. Then he basically designed and set up the electric power grid as we know it today.Then through a series of misadventures that he couldn't have forseen he was wiped out. He was tried in court because there was at least a hint of fraud. He was found not-guilty on all charges.Why do we care about such a man -- two reasons:First, he is the one that made it possible that when we turn on the light switch, the overhead light comes on. This convenience is a major part of the reasons for the advances in the world. Not only light, but medical equipment, tools, motors of all types.Second, the collapse of his company attracted the attention of the Federal Government. Because of the way his company collapsed the Government passed all kinds of laws forming the Securities and Exchance Commission, requiring quarterly reports of the financial condition of the company and so on.It's also interesting that this book came out now in the aftermath of all the recent corporate scandals. I guess that there is little that changes in the world.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful. The Most Famous Man You've Never Heard Of By Cheryl Lynn Blum Subtitled: "The more you know, the more you know you don't know."Coming across "The Merchant Of Power" by John Wasik, I was intrigued by the title and book jacket, but I half expected this book to be a clever spoof, like a book-bound Zelig. It was hard to believe that one person could have had such an effect on the history of the United States, indeed living a substantial part of his life in New York City, but had been almost erased from history less than a century later. In fact, I Googled Mr. Insull, and found that yes, he did exist, and yes, he was that influential in the modern industrialized America of the late 19th- and early 20th-century.Insull was the business "brain" behind the eccentric tinkerer, Thomas Edison, who comes across as something of an old fool, and in the New York years, Insull was deeply involved in the Edison/Westinghouse/Tesla/AC/DC controversy, and the bitter J.P. Morgan takeover of Edison Electric (which became General Electric). Getting the heck out of Dodge before things got too dicey, he headed west to a primitive outpost on the edge of the American frontier, Chicago. Finally he was able to work his magic without running up against adversaries like Morgan or George Westinghouse; he bought and consolidated several small electric companies that were serving the city and created the complex electric grid that we know today.Part biography, part history, part science (or, electrical engineering, at least) and part gossip, the book illuminates a forgotten man, and a never-to-be-forgotten period of the American story.
See all 9 customer reviews...
The Merchant of Power: Sam Insull, Thomas Edison, and the Creation of the Modern Metropolis, by John F. Wasik
The Merchant of Power: Sam Insull, Thomas Edison, and the Creation of the Modern Metropolis, by John F. Wasik PDF
The Merchant of Power: Sam Insull, Thomas Edison, and the Creation of the Modern Metropolis, by John F. Wasik iBooks
The Merchant of Power: Sam Insull, Thomas Edison, and the Creation of the Modern Metropolis, by John F. Wasik ePub
The Merchant of Power: Sam Insull, Thomas Edison, and the Creation of the Modern Metropolis, by John F. Wasik rtf
The Merchant of Power: Sam Insull, Thomas Edison, and the Creation of the Modern Metropolis, by John F. Wasik AZW
The Merchant of Power: Sam Insull, Thomas Edison, and the Creation of the Modern Metropolis, by John F. Wasik Kindle
The Merchant of Power: Sam Insull, Thomas Edison, and the Creation of the Modern Metropolis, by John F. Wasik
The Merchant of Power: Sam Insull, Thomas Edison, and the Creation of the Modern Metropolis, by John F. Wasik
The Merchant of Power: Sam Insull, Thomas Edison, and the Creation of the Modern Metropolis, by John F. Wasik
The Merchant of Power: Sam Insull, Thomas Edison, and the Creation of the Modern Metropolis, by John F. Wasik
