The Money Kings

The Epic Story of the Jewish Immigrants Who Transformed Wall Street and Shaped Modern America

By: Daniel Schulman

Narrated by: Jonathan Davis

The New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice • The incredible saga of the German-Jewish immigrants—with now familiar names like Goldman and Sachs, Kuhn and Loeb, Warburg and Schiff, Lehman and Seligman—who profoundly influenced the rise of modern finance (and so much more), from the New York Times best-selling author of Sons of Wichita

Joseph Seligman arrived in the United States in 1837, with the equivalent of $100 sewn into the lining of his pants. Then came the Lehman brothers, who would open a general store in Montgomery, Alabama. Not far behind were Solomon Loeb and Marcus Goldman, among the “Forty-Eighters” fleeing a Germany that had relegated Jews to an underclass.

These industrious immigrants would soon go from peddling trinkets and buying up shopkeepers’ IOUs to forming what would become some of the largest investment banks in the world—Goldman Sachs, Kuhn Loeb, Lehman Brothers, J. & W. Seligman & Co. They would clash and collaborate with J. P. Morgan, E. H. Harriman, Jay Gould, and other famed tycoons of the era. And their firms would help to transform the United States from a debtor nation into a financial superpower, capitalizing American industry and underwriting some of the twentieth century’s quintessential companies, like General Motors, Macy’s, and Sears. Along the way, they would shape the destiny not just of American finance but of the millions of Eastern European Jews who spilled off steamships in New York Harbor in the early 1900s, including Daniel Schulman’s paternal grandparents.

In The Money Kings, Schulman unspools a sweeping narrative that traces the interconnected origin stories of these financial dynasties. He chronicles their paths to Wall Street dominance, as they navigated the deeply antisemitic upper class of the Gilded Age, and the complexities of the Civil War, World War I, and the Zionist movement that tested both their burgeoning empires and their identities as Americans, Germans, and Jews.

The entertaining detail that brings the characters to life!

very detailed and delightfully interesting. I highly recommend that anyone aligned with financial history listen to this book!!

Interesting book!

An interesting introspection in the financial history of US and the world! I enjoyed the audio book!

Great Book on Wallstreet history

This is a great book on the foundations of banking in the United States. I highly recommend reading it.

perfect context for issues of antisemitism & money

This is a story of the German-Jewish immigrants who succeeded beyond all reasonable expectations after they came to the US in the mid-1800s. It is a fascinating book that provides insights into so many current issues through an historical lens. There were pro- and anti-slavery immigrant Jews, secular and very religious, sympathetic to and hostile to the Eastern European Jewish immigrants. The financial products these men invented or 'capitalized' on were clearly explained. The reverberations of success through the second & third generations are instructive.

The rampant anti-semitism these early moguls experienced shocked me. Todays Jewish billionaires & Harvard undergraduates should read this book...

Follow the Money

A window into a part of American history offering insights into capitalism, socialism, religion and geopolitics during a very formative period of natural and unnatural alliances, divided loyalties, wars and conflicted priorities, some of which remain today.