Goldman Sachs' Favorite Books List – Broad Industry History

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Goldman Sachs’ Favorite Books List

Goldman Sachs put together a list of the best books and it is impressive and long – unfortunately it is hard to sift through since it just has the title and the author without any information on the book so we are helping you out by filing in that info. If you want to find the full list go here we also list it below at the bottom along with descriptions. Note: we do not endorse the short term trading strategies (well we really do not officially endorse anything) but to keep the list complete we have included all descriptions of books below. Because this is lengthy we will be breaking them up by section so stay tuned for more!- which brings to Industry Background and Flavor – there are some real classics in here and a few lesser known names and many of the books only cost a few pennies from Amazon and even with shipping will cost you less than $5 TOTAL, a bunch only cost a penny plus a few dollars shipping – so make sure to check them out!!

 

Also see Bill Gates: 5 Books To Read This Summer

Also see Written About, By or For Money Managers and Traders -> here

Also see Goldman Sachs’ Recommended Reading List – Industry Background and Flavor Part I

Goldman Sachs’ Recommended Reading List – Industry Background and Flavor Part II

Goldman Sachs reading list sections

Written About, By or For Money Managers and Traders

Industry Background and Flavor

Broad Industry History

Analytical and Reference

Periodicals

Wall Street Journal (daily, Monday through Friday)

Barron’s (weekly publication)

General

IMD

FICC & Equities

Options/Derivatives

Goldman Sachs’ Favorite Books List – Broad Industry History

Investment Banking: A Tale of Three Cities by Samuel L. Hayes III and Philip M. Hubbard

Traces the evolution of international banking, focusing on the three principle markets of the investment banking industry.

A History of Corporate Finance by Jonathan Barron Baskin and Paul J. Miranti, Jr.

This study focuses on the role of institutions and organizations in the development of corporate finance from the Italian merchant banks of the Renaissance through the formation of conglomerates and leveraged-buy-out partnerships in contemporary Wall Street. It also puts forth a compelling argument for the closer integration of historical and quantitative research methodologies in financial theory. The epilogue contains an original algorithm that explains the relationship between the short-term, firm-specific factors and longer-term environmental elements that have shaped the historical development of finance.

Review

“A History of Corporate Finance is a solid contribution to scholarship that should gain the interest of historians, lawyers, economists, and business persons. Its unusual combination of scope, clarity, and brevity, combined with its reasonable price, may induce professors to make it required reading for advanced undergraduate and graduate cources in economic and business history, or in management education courses….an outstanding study that will deservedly gain a wide audience…” H-Net Book Reviews

“A History of Corporate Finance by Baskin and Miranti provides a panoramic account of the evolution of financial organizations and practices from ancient time through the present. It also compares these organizations and practices with the assumptions and conclusions of contemporary financial theories. It is must reading for both history buffs and for students, scholars, and practitioners of financial theory.” Harry Markowitz, 1990 Winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics

“Business corporations, once rare, have become the dominant organization of the modern economy. The corporation as we know it owes its existence to a long history of financial innovations–in institutions, markets, and instruments (securities). This is the first in-depth history to tell us how it all happened, from the merchants and bankers of medieval and Renaissance Italy to today’s corporate managers and wizards of Wall Street. Students of business, economics, finance, law, and history will learn much from it.” Richard Sylla, New York University

“The work embodied in A History of Corporate Finance is a brilliant combination of theoretical and historical analysis. Given the path dependency of the structure of financial institutions, the book will become required reading for anyone interested in the evolution and development of business finance over the past five hundred years or, for that matter, anyone interested in understanding today’s financial markets.” Lance E. Davis, California Institute of Technology

“…this is an outstanding book.” Book Reviews

“…immeasurable value as a survey of business and financial history.” Canadian Business Law Journal

Global Banking by Roy C. Smith and Ingo Walter

Few sectors of the global economy have experienced the dynamic and structural change that has occurred over the past several decades in banking and financial services or as much turbulence and damage to the economy and to ordinary people. Regulatory and technological changes have been among the main catalysts of change in the financial industry worldwide, making entrenched competitive structures obsolete and mandating the development of new products, new processes, new strategies, and new public policies toward the industry.

This third edition of Global Banking reassess the continuing transformational process of global banking and finance–its causes, its course, and its consequences. It begins with an overview of the most recent developments and goes on to examine the major dimensions of international commercial and investment banking, including money and foreign exchange markets, debt capital markets, international bank lending, derivatives, asset-based and project financing, and equity capital markets. Later, the various advisory businesses–mergers and acquisitions, privatizations, institutional asset management, and private banking–are analyzed. In each case, the factors that distinguish the winners from the losers are identified. This is brought together in the final section of the book, which deals with problems of strategic positioning and execution, as well as critical risk issues and regulations.

Review
“This is a very useful update on the authors’ overview of the strategic challenges facing the banking industry. It is both a useful book of reference and an easy read for expert and non-expert alike”–Charles Aldington, former Chairman, Deutsche Bank, London

“A must-read to understand the trends and issues in international banking and capital markets. Drawing on their vast academic and professional experience, Roy Smith and Ingo Walter present in a crystal-clear manner the various segments of the global banking industry, the competitive strategies of players and the pending regulatory issues. The perfect balance between presentation of institutions and economic analysis helps greatly to the understanding of a complex fast-moving industry” –Jean Dermine, Professor of Banking and Finance, INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France

“This is the third and thoroughly revised edition of a path-breaking analysis of the global banking sector. The prior edition of this book was published in 2003 and since then all of the major investment banks have disappeared and 80 percent of the wholesale business has become concentrated among a handful of megabanks. The authors have succeeded not only in making sense of these changes in the structure and regulation of the industry, but also in providing an analytical framework for understanding the forces that are shaping current and future developments. This book is a useful resource for practitioners who want to gain a strategic overview of the industry and also to university students who are contemplating careers with global banks. No other book even attempts such an ambitious agenda.”–Richard J. Herring, Jacob Safra Professor of International Banking, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Wall Street Women by Anne B. Fisher

Wall Street Women tells the story of the first generation of women to establish themselves as professionals on Wall Street. Since these women, who began their careers in the 1960s, faced blatant discrimination and barriers to advancement, they created formal and informal associations to bolster one another’s careers. In this important historical ethnography, Melissa S. Fisher draws on fieldwork, archival research, and extensive interviews with a very successful cohort of first-generation Wall Street women. She describes their professional and political associations, most notably the Financial Women’s Association of New York City and the Women’s Campaign Fund, a bipartisan group formed to promote the election of pro-choice women.

Fisher charts the evolution of the women’s careers, the growth of their political and economic clout, changes in their perspectives and the cultural climate on Wall Street, and their experiences of the 2008 financial collapse. While most of the pioneering subjects of Wall Street Women did not participate in the women’s movement as it was happening in the 1960s and 1970s, Fisher argues that they did produce a “market feminism” which aligned liberal feminist ideals about meritocracy and gender equity with the logic of the market.

Review

“Detecting gendering in high finance is a long-standing challenge—it is a domain inhospitable to the main categories of feminist analysis. Melissa S. Fisher goes at it with gusto and gives us a great book.”—Saskia Sassen, author of Territory, Authority, Rights

“Melissa Fisher’s Wall Street Women introduces us to a feminist world that we can hardly imagine. As they dream of changing the hostile domain of finance, women find themselves drawing on traditional notions of gender equality and coaching each other in old-fashioned survival skills. Written in enticing prose, Wall Street Women offers us an illuminating peek into a wholly unexpected fusion of feminism with the market.”—Alice Kessler-Harris, author of A Difficult Woman: The Challenging Life and Times of Lillian Hellman

“Extensively researched and thoroughly documented, this portrait of a pioneering generation of women provides context for understanding the emergent discourse of feminizing markets. Strongly recommended for readers interested in business anthropology or gender studies, particularly for gendered discourses of finance and the female financial elite.”

(Rebekah Wallin Library Journal)

“Fisher presents a world to us that taps into a current public interest in women pioneers in business, is methodologically innovative, is theoretically rich, and is ethnographically vital in understanding how to move forward as both gendered and market-engaged persons in the post–?nancial crisis world.”

(Sarah A. Tobin American Ethnologist)

“Fisher . . . combines the detached curiosity of an anthropologist studying the folkways of a tribal village with a sure grasp of history, politics, and economics, as well as an affectionate regard for her subjects, a small group of highly successful women who entered Wall Street in the ’60s.”

(Publishers Weekly)

“Melissa Fisher has written a fascinating, fresh, and accessible account of the pioneering women who started careers on Wall Street in the 1960s and 1970s and established themselves as successful financial professionals. . . . This book offers a readable ethnography that would be a valuable course adoption in both undergraduate and graduate courses on social aspects of finance or gender and labor markets.”

(Louise Marie Roth American Journal of Sociology)

Wall Street Women serves not only as an helpful reminder of women’s struggles and successes, but also as an enlightening depiction of changes—and continuing challenges—in a part of the business world often seen as mysterious at best and oppressive at worst. Indeed, the material Fisher gleans through ethnographic and archival research establishes the importance of her project, even if the book raises troubling questions about the compromises that women continue to make in the name of success, and about the nature of high finance itself.”

(Megan Brown Reviews in Cultural Theory)

“[W]ell-argued and superbly researched. . . . Fisher’s in-depth case study of a Wall Street women’s cohort adds ethnographic specificity to the typically cross-societal literature on market feminism.”

(Alexandra Michel Administrative Science Quarterly)

Wall Street Women offers insightful interpretations of the noticeable changes in the rhetoric and practice of the first women of Wall Street, encouraging further comparative study of elites in this area. Fisher’s extensive fieldwork, conducted over many years, has produced a detailed, wide-ranging and thoughtful exploration of the first women of Wall Street and their navigation of a competitive corporate culture structured by ideas about masculinity. Furthermore, it makes a significant contribution to our wider understanding of capitalism and finance as gendered and the resulting complexity of this for women in a market-driven society.”

(Alison C. Kay Women’s History Review)

In the Black: A History of African Americans on Wall Street by Gregory S. Bell

The never-before-told story of five decades of African Americans on Wall Street

Here, for the first time, is the fascinating history of the African American experience on Wall Street as told by Gregory Bell, the son of the man who founded the first black-owned member firm of the New York Stock Exchange. A successful finance professional in his own right with close ties to leading figures in both the black financial and civil rights communities, Bell tells the stories of the pioneers who broke down the ancient social and political barriers to African American participation in the nation s financial industry. With the help of profiles of many important black leaders of the past fifty years including everyone from Jesse Jackson and Maynard Jackson, former mayor of Atlanta, to E. Stanley O Neal, COO and President of Merrill Lynch, and Russell Goings, founder of First Harlem Securities and cofounder of First Harlem Securities he shows how in the years following World War II the growing social, political, and financial powers of African Americans converged on Wall Street. Set to publish during Black History Month, In the Black will be warmly received by African American business readers and general readers alike.

Review – From Publishers Weekly

Tough, resourceful and determined, the small band of early African-American pioneers venturing into Wall Street’s fast-paced, hard-driving financial markets have not often been recognized for their achievements. Bell’s history of those men who made a difference corrects that oversight. Bell (whose father, Travers Bell, worked for the New York Stock Exchange’s first black-owned firm) brings an insider’s view to the realm of investment banking and finance, starting with a brief biography of his family a clan enamored with trading and brokerage, but hampered by the restraints of Jim Crow. With well-researched support and measured prose, Bell chronicles the first black attempts to penetrate the securities industry pre- and post-Civil War. Little-known facts, such as the entry of the first black registered stockbrokers and salesmen on “The Street” in the early 1940s and the importance of black firms like McGhee & Company and Patterson & Company, underline the relentless struggle these men endured. Some of the best segments come in Bell’s recounting of their difficulties during the turbulent 1960s and ’70s, when slow yet persistent progress was made on several fronts against discriminatory practices on Wall Street, beginning with Merrill Lynch’s hiring of three black brokers in 1965. For those seeking a close, informed look at the long, heroic battle by black businessmen and brokers to seize a piece of the action on Wall Street, this book is a source lean, informative and devoid of filler or tirades.

From Library Journal

Wall Street has been responsible for creating an enormous amount of wealth in the United States, but according to Bell, the son of the man who founded the first black-owned member firm of the New York Stock Exchange, not much of that has found its way into the pockets of African Americans. This book, which charts the African American experience on Wall Street, doesn’t contain much prior to the 1960s, but the author offers in-depth coverage of the past 40 years, showing how small, black-owned investment houses got started. Many of these small start-ups were undercapitalized, and while they grew during the good times, they frequently failed during the bad. The author suggests that the “old boy” white network was, in part, responsible for keeping blacks out, and there is some truth to that. However, the times have changed, with Wall Street investment banks actively recruiting minorities and black-owned asset management firms thriving. Unfortunately, the book suffers from spotty research and is not well written or edited. Still, this is the only book to offer much-needed research in this area and is appropriate for larger public library nonfiction collections and African American studies. Richard Drezen, Washington Post, New York City Bureau

From Booklist

This well-written, straightforward history of African Americans on Wall Street is peppered with both familiar and not-so-well-known names such as Joe Searles, the first black New York Stock Exchange member, and Reginald Lewis, the late head of TLC Beatrice International. Decade by decade, Bell (son of financial firm Daniels Bell cofounder Travers Bell) chronicles successes and setbacks in various segments of the industry, from brokerage firms to investment banks. Real-money deals for these firms begin to abound in the 1980s and 1990s, including the financing of Atlanta’s Hartsfield Airport and the largest-ever bond offering in 1993 in Los Angeles. On the other hand, most of these firms struggled for survival, handicapped by undercapitalization as well as by more stringent SEC rulings, such as the May 1, 1975, end of fixed commissions. Today, the black American community is represented throughout all financial services (though probably in fewer numbers than originally expected), and Bell’s nonglitzy narrative secures their place in Wall Street history.

The Last Partnerships: Inside the Great Wall Street Money Dynasties by Charles R. Giesst

Selected as one of the Top 10 Business Books by “Booklist

“”The Last Partnerships “is an enormously enjoyable read.”–United Press International

“The Last Partnerships narrates the rise and fall of the great financial houses–from the “Yankee Bankers” at the turn of the 19th century, up to Goldman Sachs’s historic IPO in 1999– tracing their origins, their successes and failures over the years, and the reasons for their ultimate demise.

Reviews – From Publishers Weekly

Despite the subtitle, this book doesn’t throw wide the back-room doors of major investment banking and brokerage firms like Merrill Lynch and Salomon Brothers. Instead, it provides a general history of Wall Street, organized in chronological chapters, each featuring two famous houses. The first chapter covers 1812 to 1873, focusing on Clark Dodge and Jay Cooke. The last chapter runs from the 1930s to the present, featuring Lazard Freres and Goldman Sachs. Most of the material can be found in the author’s previous works, 100 Years of Wall Street and Wall Street: A History. This reorganization might have yielded new insights had it shown how certain firms helped shape their time and place, and vice versa, or perhaps if it had focussed on the passing of the torch from era to era. As it stands, Ron Chernow’s The Death of the Banker and Martin Mayer’s The Bankers and even Geisst’s previous works are more compelling and better written. Still, Geisst has more understanding of finance than most popular financial historians; despite the drawbacks of this Wall Street history, it represents the various firms fairly and aptly.

From Library Journal

Geisst (Wall Street: A History; Monopolies in America: Empire Builders and their Enemies from Jay Gould to Bill Gates) here provides a history of U.S. investment banking over the past 200 years. As the title indicates, investment banking has shifted from partnership activity to corporate ownership. Geisst creditably describes the forces at work in the creation of capital, providing some sociological context through ethnicity and gender issues. Geisst accounts for a number of factors that have caused investment banking to undergo a sea change: increasingly high dollar amounts, the ability of inexperienced traders to bankrupt firms, and the demise of relationship banking. He shows how cutthroat competition changed investment banking from a business based on relationships to one based on the deal itself. This book’s appeal will be limited to those interested in financial history. Steven Silkunas, Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, Philadelphia

The City of London, vol 1-4 by David Kynaston

The ‘Square Mile’, London’s financial powerhouse, rose to prominence with the defeat of Napoleon in 1815. David Kynaston’s vibrant history brings this world to life, taking us from the railway boom of the 1830s to the ‘Golden Age’, when the legendary gold standard reigned supreme. Between the two World Wars the City was affected by the Wall Street Crash, pressured by politicians, trade unions and industrialists, but by the end of the twentieth century it had regained a precarious global might. Woven throughout are the stories of four individuals who shaped the City in different ways – Nathan Rothschild, Ernest Cassel, Montagu Norman and Siegmund Warburg. But the realm of great bankers and brokers is also the workplace of young clerks throwing paper darts, typists bringing in their sandwiches, and sad racketeers watching aghast as the markets fall. Above all, we see what it was like to work in the City – the dress codes, eating habits, work hours, pay, humour, changing architecture and language that forged the unique culture of the Square Mile. Richly entertaining, full of vivid anecdotes, this is a story of booms, busts and bankruptcies – from the Kaffir boom to the Marconi scandal, the ‘Big Bang’ deregulation of 1986, and the Barings crash in 1995 – bringing us to the brink of the modern age. David Knayston’s groundbreaking history of the “City of London”, published in four volumes between 1994 and 2001, is a modern classic. Skillfully edited into a single volume by David Milner, it tells a story as dramatic as any novel, while explaining the mysteries of the financial world in a way that we can all understand.

Review

“The story is never dry, for Kynaston tells it as human drama… This is economic history at its most glittering.” — Simon Jenkins The Times

“A work of breathtaking scope and accomplishment” — D.J. Taylor Independent

“Magisterial… Kynaston is compulsively readable on all the great City scandals.” — William Keegan Observer

“No one knows more secrets about the City of London than David Kynaston… about what goes on behind the copper-plate facades of old City firms, or in the boardrooms of the gleaming glasshouses. Kynaston is the historian of the City.” — Peter Oborne Sunday Express

“Everyone should read David Kynaston’s riveting history of the City: a subject too important to be left to the bankers.” — John Lanchester, author of Whoops! Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No one Can Pay

The Rise and Fall of the Merchant Bank by Erik Banks

The series provides up-to-date information on the international capital markets from the best financial institutions in the world. The high-level professional titles explain, analyse and examine the latest instruments and markets and the fast-evolving regulatory framework.

How did Britain’s former Titans of banking, respected the world over, lose their grip? This expert analysis of the current state of investment banking also provides all the historical perspective to explain the demise of UK merchant banking and the fading glory of the British financial institution.

With the recent wave of mergers and acquisitions throwing the global financial industry into turmoil and turning the former plants of finance into mere nameplates on the doors of large foreign institutions. Erik Banks discusses the impact of globalization on the historical banking bodies and explains why the securities sector was found wanting and the domestic industry transformed into a huge financial supermarket.

The London Stock Exchange: A History by Ranald Michie

In 2001, the London Stock Exchange will be 200 years old, though its origins go back a century before that. This book traces the history of the London Stock Exchange from its beginnings around 1700 to the present day, chronicling the challenges and opportunities it has faced, avoided, or exploited over the years.

Review

“No one familiar with Professor Ranald Michie’s earlier work…will be surprised that he has produced a superb volume that will atmost certainly be the last institutional history of the first two hundred years of the London Stock Exchange….His book is a ‘must-read’ for any student of British and world finance, of formal security markets, and of British economic history, and an ‘almost-must-read’ for anyone with a general interest in economic history….carefully drawn and thorough…a superb study…truly fascinating.”–Journal of Economic History

The Death of Gentlemanly Capitalism by Philip Auga

This work will examines the decline of the British merchant bank during the 1980’s and 90’s. The story of Barings is commonly told, but Barings was just one of a significant number of British merchant banks which collapsed, were sold, or simply gave up. Only four now remain, and all of these survivors are independent of outside institutional shareholders. Phillip Augar takes us through the boom of the Thatcher years, the crash of 1987, the “Big Bang” and the impact of technology, and the aggressive invasion of the American banks. He looks at why the British banks failed to keep pace with these changes like their American counterparts, and what this says about the way they were run, and the way that companies in general are run. He also examines the issue of ownership and shareholding, which appear pertinent given that the four surviving British merchant banks are independent.

Goldman Sachs' Favorite Books List - Broad Industry History
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