Photo by Chenyu Guan on Unsplash
I remember rummaging through a used books bookstore and finding this kind of raggedy book with the front and back pages torn and disheveled. The moment I saw the book I felt like I found a hidden treasure. And, boy, was I right. I loved every page of it.
Back then I was a stock broker. After finishing the book I was, of course, ecstatic to share it with my fellow stock brokers. With my circle of young stock brokers back then we had this thing of sharing amazing reads, book or magazines, or anything about relating to high finance.
So at that point, when I was sharing what I read from The Merchant Bankers, by Joseph Wechsberg, everyone was just enthralled on the things I remembered reading. For a few days I was like the center of attention because I know so many things about some of the Wall Street elite brokers. I had like history of Barings family of ING Barings, the Lehman Brothers, the Rothschilds, the Warburgs, and some other notable merchant bankers. I remember lending the book but somehow I never got it back.
It was a truly interesting read because the author had an in-depth research on how the merchant bankers started and how they spread their empires. Not going to spoil, but by reading this you might get a glimpse of how the legend of the Rothschilds began. The conspiracy theories were not included but suffice to say you can have an idea if the conspiracy theories are warranted or not.
The book is a page turner if you're fascinated with finance. I am not sure if the term merchant bankers are still being used nowadays as the world of finance has been wrestled away from the merchant bankers by modern financial institutions like insurance firms, mutual funds, hedge funds, and investment bankers. Also merchant bankers were of the time when Europe was the center of the world but modern finance has been more USA-centric, thanks to the emergence of Wall Street as the finance capital of the world.
I made this book review because I think with the rise of cryptocurrencies in relation to the world of finance, I think we could truly get a lot of wisdom from this literary hidden gem of a book as fortunes are going to change hands big time again.
One of things I remember taking note of while reading this book was that the author would also give emphasis on how things shifted from the 16th century up to the present time of the author's present time.
The author made mention of the cataclysmic events in the financial world with regards to these exceptional individuals/families and how they facilitated or adapted to those events effecting change in the world of finance such as the industrial revolution, invention of the telephone, and whatever it was that attracted a lot of money. I don't really want to give away a lot, so let's leave it at this.
If this is your cup of tea, I already readied this amazon link for you to click because I don't want to leave you hanging.
Here's the link: https://amzn.to/341ueOl
Okay, I will admit, I am included in the Amazon affiliate program because I owned a website before and applied to be an affiliate. My website however had been shutdown for a year now but I can still access my Amazon affiliate page, and can still copy links from there. So honestly, I don't know if I would make money if you click the link and purchase from there. But I just want to share this wonderful gem to anyone who might truly be interested.
I will update too if I did get something should somebody proceed to purchase the book via Amazon and used the link above. I just want to lay this on the table too.
I wanted to share this because now with the onset of Bitcoin and blockchain technology, I have this tingly spider sense bugging me that the world of finance is gonna go through a great upheaval in the next few years. Most likely new kings and emperors will be crowned.
Happy reading!