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A gripping rollicking John Carreyrou New York Times bestselling author of Bad Blood biography of Jay Gould the greatest of the 19thcentury robber barons whose brilliance greed and bareknuckled tactics made him richer than Rockefeller and led Wall Street to institute its first financial reforms

Had Jay Gould put his name on a university or concert hall he would undoubtedly have been a household name today The son of a poor farmer whose early life was marked by tragedy Gould saw money as the means to give his family a better lifeeven if to do so he had to pull a fast one on everyone else After entering Wall Street at the age of twentyfour he quickly became notorious when he paralyzed the economy and nearly toppled President Ulysses S Grant in the Black Friday market collapse of 1869 in an attempt to corner the market on goldan event that remains among the darkest days in Wall Street history Through clever financial maneuvers he gained control over one of every six miles of the countrys rapidly expanding network for railroad trackscoming close to creating the first truly transcontinental railroad and making himself one of the richest men in America

American Rascal shows Goulds complex quirky character He was at once praised for his brilliance by Rockefeller and Vanderbilt and condemned for forever destroying American business values by Mark Twain He lived a colorful life trading jokes with Thomas Edison figuring Thomas Nasts best sketches paying Boss Tweeds bail and commuting to work in a 200foot yacht

Gould thrived in an expanding industrial economy in which authorities tolerated inside trading and stock price manipulation because they believed regulation would stifle the progress But by taking these practices to new levels Gould showed how unbridled capitalism was in fact dangerous for the American economy This gripping biography Fortune explores how Goulds audacious exploitation of economic freedom triggered the first public demands for financial reformsa call that still resonates today