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The New York Times wrote of Merchant of Power: "One accomplishment of John F. Wasik's The Merchant of Power is to remind us that before there was power coming out of the wall, someone had to develop and finance generating stations...The timing of Mr. Wasik's book would seem to be perfect."
Read the full review.
"The Merchant of Power:
Sam Insull, Thomas Edison and the Creation of the Modern
Metropolis," by Bloomberg News columnist John Wasik,
does a fine job of telling the early story of utilities,
moguls and scandal." -- Andrew Leckey, Tribune Media
Services
"His book provides a historical perspective of how we
keep making the same mistakes and how we can avoid them.
The Merchant of Power is a fascinating read
filled with power plays, underhanded dealings, misguided
loyalty, opera and organized crime, with some Chicago
society chicanery thrown in for good measure." -- Angele
McQuade, Better Investing |
What the
cool biz kids are reading
"Samuel Insull was one of the best-known, perhaps
infamous, figures of the late 1920s and early 1930s,
but is largely forgotten today. The one-time
business secretary to Thomas Edison helped launch
the modern model of the electric utility, with
central generating stations and an interconnected
grid of transmission lines. The spectacular
financial collapse of his companies and his own
financial ruin in the Depression led to laws on
securities and investment disclosure and utility
holding companies, laws investors are still dealing
with today." -- Bill Virgin, Seattle
Post-Intelligencer
"John F. Wasik's brilliant new book, The Merchant of Power, brings Insull back
to complicated life, and should revive interest in a forgotten giant. In this
intensely detailed portrait, Insull is revealed as stubborn, intelligent,
democratic, uncongenial, generous, vain, blinded by his own paranoia and oddly
lovable. His story is a weird blend of Horatio Alger and Shakespearian tragedy.
Electricity and its revolutionary role in modern civilization is at the heart of
the story." -- The Chicago Sun-Times
Author John Wasik, a columnist for the Bloomberg financial news service,
comes into his own as he lays out the stupendous house of cards Insull then
created through holding companies whose sole purpose was to mask the acquisition
of ever more capital based on the same assets. This is a well-told tale about
why genius and single-mindedness are not enough. -- James Srodes, The
Washington Times
Read the full review
The Good Life guide to summer reading
FORTUNE Magazine
By Nadira A. Hira
"For a more focused look at one of the most interesting historical figures you've never heard of, John F. Wasik's "The Merchant of Power: Sam Insull, Thomas Edison, and the Creation of the Modern Metropolis" is more than worth a look. The story of Insull, Thomas Edison's right-hand man and one of the world's richest men in the early 20th century, is also a fascinating cautionary tale. The man who invented the power grid lost it all - including his place in history - in the Great Depression, at least until now."
"
In this bittersweet biography of an American industrial titan, business and finance journalist John F. Wasik aptly compares early 20th-century Chicago power czar Samuel Insull to the honeysuckle plant. Wasik points out that the honeysuckle, a bush that is not native to North America, is difficult to eradicate once it is established and that, despite the sweetness of its blossoms, it grows so prodigiously that it often chokes off native plants. However, Insull, like the honeysuckle, indulged his propensity to spread his mastery by constantly buying up other utility companies, railroads, banks, and other businesses.
Until Wasik's highly readable biography, Insull's story largely lived up to Marc Antony's assertion that ''the evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones." Much of the good Insull did will now be remembered. And the reminders of the evil aspects lend perspective to injuries done to the public by contemporary monopolists." -- Cecil Johnson, Knight-Ridder Newspapers
"The strength of this book is not in terms of historical detail related to
Insull's business dealings, or, for that matter, the impact of electrical
technology on the changing nature of American life during the early twentieth
century...rather, Wasik's strength is in his portrayal of the broader context of
the life and times of Samuel Insull, including family life and Chicago society
and culture. The author's writing style is imminently readable, and certainly
this is a book that will be welcomed by undergraduate student readers. -- John
Heitmann, History
``Wasik's resurrection of the life of Samuel Insull not only recuperates the story the creation of the modern metropolis, it also serves as a timely reminder of the consequences of corporate overreaching. Wasik, a business and finance journalist, draws on Insull's archives and his correspondence with his one-time boss, Thomas Edison, to trace Insull's rise to power, to investigate his role in creating General Electric and to examine the causes of his fall from power. He fits his portrait of Insull into a vivid account of life in early 20th-century America.'' --
Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
"Wasik writes well, and Insull is a complex man whose life and times makes worthwhile reading."
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Coming across "The Merchant Of Power" by John Wasik, I was intrigued by the title and book jacket, but I half expected this book to be a clever spoof, like a book-bound Zelig. It was hard to believe that one person could have had such an effect on the history of the United States, indeed living a substantial part of his life in New York City, but had been almost erased from history less than a century later. In fact, I Googled Mr. Insull, and found that yes, he did exist, and yes, he was that influential in the modern industrialized America of the late 19th- and early 20th-century.
Insull was the business "brain" behind the eccentric tinkerer, Thomas Edison, who comes across as something of an old fool, and in the New York years, Insull was deeply involved in the Edison/Westinghouse/Tesla/AC/DC controversy, and the bitter J.P. Morgan takeover of Edison Electric (which became General Electric). Getting the heck out of Dodge before things got too dicey, he headed west to a primitive outpost on the edge of the American frontier, Chicago. Finally he was able to work his magic without running up against adversaries like Morgan or George Westinghouse; he bought and consolidated several small electric companies that were serving the city and created the complex electric grid that we know today. Part biography, part history, part science (or, electrical engineering, at least) and part gossip, the book illuminates a forgotten man, and a never-to-be-forgotten period of the American story.
From amazon.com
Cheryl Lynn Blum "The Book Lady"
Listen to John Wasik talk about his exciting new book The Merchant of Power on NPR's Marketplace Radio (2/21/06).
Listen to John Wasik talking about The Merchant of Power on Chicago Public Radio.
WHAT'S HOT
Here's one of the of the gems among the
hundreds of business titles that crossed my desk last
year: The Merchant of Power, John F. Wasik
(Palgrave Macmillan) --| Greg Hack, Kansas City Star
"I read Devil in the White City and I became fascinated with the history of our great city of Chicago. I can't say enough about
Merchant of Power. It's captivating, educational, amusing and informative. I find myself reading many paragraphs aloud to my husband, who's from Mundelein and lived in the neighborhood across the street from the seminary. I never knew the history in little ol' Lake County was so fascinating. Your book has made me realize just how interested I am in Chicago's history and I plan on educating myself even further after finishing Merchant. Thank you for all of the blood, sweat and tears you must've put into writing such a riveting book." -- M. Schwartz
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Here's what Pulitzer
Prize winner Studs Terkel had to say about Merchant of
Power:
"One of the most
magnetic and powerful con artists of the Great
Depression was Sam Insull. Patron of the arts,
philanthropist and Thomas Edison's right hand, he
shafted thousands of investors large and small. My
mother, one of the latter, lost her bundle during his
adventures. I found the work of John Wasik not only
personally enthralling but an informal history of that
traumatic time."
A timely rags-to-riches story, The Merchant of Power recounts
how Sam Insull--right hand to Thomas Edison--went on to
become one of the richest men in the world, pivotal in the birth
of General Electric and instrumental in the creation of the
modern metropolis with his invention of the power grid, which
fuels major cities today. John Wasik, awarded the National Press
Club Award for Consumer Journalism, had unprecedented access
to Sam Insull's archives, which includes private correspondence
with Thomas Edison. The extraordinary fall of a man
extraordinary for his time is revealed in this cautionary tale about
the excesses of corporate power.
Merchant of Power received an "honorable mention" in the 2006 Midland Society of Authors book awards.
About John Wasik
As the award-winning author of 10 books, Wasik has spoken to crowds from coast to coast on investing, retirement and protecting your money. As a personal finance columnist for Bloomberg News, the world's third-largest news service, his columns reach 400 newspapers on five continents and have appeared in The Financial Times, International Herald-Tribune, Washington Post, Orange County Register and other papers in Canada, Europe, Japan, South America and Africa.
His latest book is The Merchant of Power, an epic tale of the life and times of Samuel Insull, the Chicago utilities magnate from the 1920s.
The book has been featured on NPR, PBS, WOR,
WGN and reviewed in The New York Times, The
Philadelphia Inquirer, Boston Globe, Arizona Star,
Chicago Sun-Times, The State, St. Louis
Post-Dispatch and the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram.
As former special projects editor for Consumers Digest magazine, he has won 18 awards for his columns and investigative reporting, including the National Press Club award for Consumer Journalism. He has spoken at the New York Money Show, the National Home Center Show and the University of Chicago Business School. He is also a popular lecturer on investing at the University of Chicago's Graham School.
Wasik also has contributed to Reader's Digest, The New York Times, Modern Maturity, Parade, Smart Money, Popular Science, Health, Kiplinger's Personal Finance, Barron's, The Chicago Tribune and newspapers across North America.
His books include:
The Merchant of Power (2006)
The Bear-Proof Investor (Owl, 2002)
The Kitchen-Table Investor (Holt, 2001)
Retire Early and Live the Life You Want Now (Holt, 2000)
The Late-Start Investor (Holt, 1999)
The Green Company Resource Guide (NCI, 1997)
The Investment Club Book (Warner, 1996)
Green Marketing & Management: A Global Perspective (Blackwell, 1996)
The Green Supermarket Shopping Guide (Warner, 1995)
The Electronic Business Information Sourcebook (Wiley, 1987)
He's also appeared on NBC, NPR, PBS, CNBC, MSNBC, CNN, CNNfn, Bloomberg TV and radio and on hundreds of TV and radio stations across the country. He earned his B.A. (psychology) and M.A. (communications) from the University of Illinois-Chicago and resides north of Chicago with his wife and two daughters.
Contact information: 847/223-9814; (847) 223-9854 fax
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