The subtitle is The Adventures of a Wall Street Legend and the author is James Grant (1983, 1996).
I knew of Baruch as a successful investor and advisor to FDR, but that’s where my knowledge ended. This biography served to broaden that understanding. In truth, while a very wealthy man because of his investing prowess, the legend was a bit overstated – for example, he was bullish at the 1929 peak and still buying stocks up until the crash (to his credit, though, he managed to make money through the turbulent 1930s). And his political “career” spanned presidencies from Wilson to Kennedy, both in formal and informal advisory roles. He was an affirmed Democrat, but was flexible in terms of the particulars, going back and forth from supporting price controls in one instant to hands-off government in another, depending on the time and audience. He also rejected Keynes and his ideas from the beginning, but again stayed nimble in his representation of that fact. Generally, he was a shrewd operator.
Two interesting, albeit trivial anecdotes from the book: (1) Baruch was Jewish and from South Carolina, and his father was actually a member of the KKK, and (2) the famed Dakota building was named as such because it was located way far away from where Manhattan ended at the time on 59th street.
