Zachary Karabell was educated at Columbia, Oxford, and Harvard, where he received his PhD. He is a prolific commentator, both in print and on television, and the author of a dozen previous books, including The Last Campaign, which won the Chicago Tribune's Heartland Prize, and The Leading Indicators. He is also a longtime investor, former financial services executive, and the founder of the Progress Network.
“Powerful . . . There is something quietly stirring in the tale
of Alexander Brown, a Belfast linen merchant who emigrated to
Baltimore in 1800, and together with his four sons became, first, a
major linen importer, then a dealer in cotton, coffee, copper, iron
and sugar, then a financier. Karabell, the author of several books
on business and history, uses Brown Brothers as a lens into the
nation’s growth . . . His narrative of a firm that remained private
and true to its credo is engaging and new.” —New York Times Book
Review
“An engaging history . . . Karabell, who has worked in banking
himself, tells a brisk and muscular story.” —Robert Armstrong, The
Financial Times
“Karabell tells the tale with vigour, bringing the leading
characters to life while locating their exploits in America’s
broader economic and political history. He does not shy away from
darker episodes, acknowledging the cotton traders’ dependence on
the labour of slaves, and exposing the casual antisemitism of some
partners.” —Reuters
“[Inside Money is] a book worth reading for anyone interested in
the history of Wall Street, a well-told tale of how American
finance evolved from a relative backwater into the collateralized
colossus it is today.” —Forbes
“Inside Money can be read as a rather convincing declension
narrative of the 20th-century U.S. establishment, financiers, and
foreign-policy mavens alike.” —Foreign Policy
“Karabell provides as good a discussion of the ‘dollar diplomacy’
and corporatism that defined that era as any I have read. These are
complex ideas and a deeply challenging part of U.S. history. The
blending of corporate and national interests in the late 19th and
early 20th century—a blending that led U.S. soldiers to literally
die to protect the financial interests of the Brown family of
bankers—is a valuable perspective through which we can view our
present foreign entanglements.” —American Banker
“Historian Karabell examines the long history of a financial
services firm that exercised outsize power in the political sphere.
. . . Karabell digs deep into the history of the intertwined firm,
sometimes revealing uncomfortable truths, such as Brown Brothers’
deep involvement in the Southern cotton economy and thus
implication in the institution of slavery. In the balance, however,
the more important story is the wedding of American money to global
power. . . . A readable, unfailingly interesting study in the
making of the American century.” —Kirkus
“Extensively well-researched . . . The history of American
capitalism is intricately intertwined with the evolution of the
private investment firm Brown Brothers Harriman . . . Karabell had
full access to the company’s archives and has produced the first
comprehensive inside story of Brown Brothers Harriman and the
people behind it. A long overdue history.” —Library Journal
(starred review)
“Brown Brothers Harriman has weathered wars, banking panics, and
stock market crashes by following Alexander Brown’s advice to his
sons, including ‘avoid unnecessary risks,’ don’t trade with
‘unvetted partners,’ and ‘be known as someone whom others could
trust.’ . . . Karabell draws an illuminating contrast between
Brown Brothers Harriman and behemoths such as Chase and Goldman
Sachs. Fans of business history will be rapt.” —Publishers
Weekly
“Karabell weaves a fascinating tale of the East Coast WASP
establishment . . .” —Bloomberg Today
“Author, columnist, and podcast host Karabell (The
Leading Indicators, 2014) clarifies the record, revealing this
bank’s outsized influence in U.S. life, both in finance and
politics. . . . Karabell writes financial history compellingly,
transcending dull accountancy with the drama of humans creating and
managing wealth.” —Booklist
“With judicious insight and a flair for storytelling, Zachary
Karabell has made an immense contribution to understanding money
and power in America, and globally. In this history of Brown
Brothers Harriman we can chart the often-porous relationship
between governance and capital at a time when both are under
renewed stress and strain. Karabell’s achievement is to give us the
human story of seemingly abstract forces—and anyone who aspires to
understand what Henry Luce called ‘the American Century’ and beyond
will find Karabell’s lucid and compelling book to be essential
reading.” —Jon Meacham
“Inside Money is a history of American capitalism with an unusual
and welcome slant. Suppose the gospel of wealth included the idea
of ‘enough’? That partners in a firm could choose relationships
over ever more riches? That greed be subordinated to trust and
integrity? Brown Brothers Harriman still has much to answer for,
but its story tells us a great deal about the emergence of the
winner-take-all world.” —Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO New America
“Inside Money is the sweeping and storied history of Brown Brothers
Harriman, one of the great Wall Street firms, which came to embody
that distinctive marriage of money and power that marked the
“American Century.” With his unique talents as a historian and one
of our liveliest writers on finance, Zachary Karabell has crafted a
wonderfully engrossing narrative, full of fascinating historical
insights about the American elite at the height of its global
influence.” —Liaquat Ahamed, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lords
of Finance
“Zachary Karabell understands both money and American history. Here
he weaves them together in a fascinating story that reads like a
good multi-generational novel.” —Joseph Nye, professor at Harvard
and author of Do Morals Matter? Presidents and Foreign Policy from
FDR to Trump
“A captivating secret history of the rise of the American way of
capitalism through the story of one powerful and insular family
firm, Inside Money reminds us that a dominant caste’s sense of
noblesse oblige conceals many ironies and much self-interest, but
they knew when enough was enough and when private interest needed
to give way to the public good.” —Dambisa Moyo, economist and
author of Edge of Chaos
“Zachary Karabell's Inside Money is a monumental history of
behemoth investment firm Brown Brothers Harriman. Whether
dealing with Wall Street intrigue or Big Railroad power or
financial booms-and-busts, Karabell proves to be a master of his
trade. It's impossible to understand how America became such a
global power without reading this superb book. Highly
recommended!” —Douglas Brinkley, Katherine Tsanoff Brown Chair
in Humanities and Professor of History at Rice University and
author of American Moonshot: John F. Kennedy and the Great Space
Race
“With his customary elegance and acuity, Karabell tells the
engrossing story of one of America’s most storied private banks,
whose quiet influence did much to define the international system
that took shape after World War II and endures, if perilously, to
this day. A luminous work of history.” —Fredrik Logevall,
Harvard University, author of JFK: Coming of Age in the
American Century, 1917-1956
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