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The Moneychangers

3.6 of 5 stars 3.60 · rating details · 107 ratings · 15 reviews

Upton Sinclair's disturbing novel about the Wall Street scare of 1907 portrays the tactics of greedy capitalists who organize the fall of a rival trust company, creating a crash in the stock market crash and a run on American banks. Ultimately thousands of jobs are lost, throwing the world into financial chaos. Newly designed and typeset in a modern 6-by-9-inch format by W...more

Paperback, 184 pages

Published July 1st 2008 by Classic Books Library (first published 1919)

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Mar 13, 2009 Kristen rated it 4 of 5 stars

For being a book that is almost impossible to find, it's disturbingly appropriate for what is going on in the economy today. Rather than delving into the lives of immigrants and slaughtering critters - this book follows the uppercrust on Wall Street through the stockmarket crash in the early 1900's.

Sinclair's characters are tragic, as always - but it is what is going on in this book that is so interesting. The motives and the greed, and the power struggle that finally leads to a stock market cra...more

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Feb 27, 2012 Johnny rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-fiction, literature

After discovering the work of Upton Sinclair in high school, I have only sparingly enjoyed his work spaced over intervals of several years. The Jungle was my first experience, but that expose of the Chicago meat-packing industry didn’t have the same effect on me that it did on President Theodore Roosevelt and many others. The former president became a vegetarian for a short amount of time. I kept on eating meat. Others refused to eat sausage or hot dogs after finding out what went into them and...more After discovering the work of Upton Sinclair in high school, I have only sparingly enjoyed his work spaced over intervals of several years. The Jungle was my first experience, but that expose of the Chicago meat-packing industry didn’t have the same effect on me that it did on President Theodore Roosevelt and many others. The former president became a vegetarian for a short amount of time. I kept on eating meat. Others refused to eat sausage or hot dogs after finding out what went into them and the unsanitary conditions that Sinclair exposed. I began to seek out such exotic culinary treasures as “Vienna Sausages” and read the ingredients with perverse delight. But what stayed with me was the way that Sinclair, known along with Frank Norris, Theodore Dreiser, and Sinclair Lewis as part of the muckraking school of novelists, told a compelling story with interesting protagonists at the same time he exposed the inner workings of one industry or another.

Still, my next encounter with Sinclair wasn’t a novel. It was a book entitled The Goosestep: A Study of American Education. I was in college, chafing at the institutional constraints and the narrow-mindedness (my perception—fair or not) of those in my student body, so I was receptive to the idea that trustees acted in lock-step with capitalists and that German influence was too pervasive within the curriculum and pedagogical approaches of the day. I noticed Oil and King Coal on the shelf and resolved to get back to them some day, but my coursework intervened. When Oil was made into a motion picture, I read the novel. Although it was more “preachy” concerning Sinclair’s socialism than I remembered The Jungle being, it was interesting enough that I found an obscure novel by the same author entitled Co-op which I immediately purchased and read. It was still “preachy,” but the story was more like that of the more popular novel. Now, I have located The Moneychangers and I am delighted.

In a strict sense, The Moneychangers would not be considered “historical fiction” as I have classified it. Sinclair wrote it to reflect business conditions within the latter part of the 19th century and the turn of the 20th century. It was the era of capitalistic indulgence prior to the infamous stock market crash in the ‘20s and it paints a vivid portrait of the age with darker shadows than a Rembrandt canvas with regard to common business practices of the day. Indeed, published in 1908, it seems to be based on Sinclair’s perspectives on the Bank Panic of 1907. And sadly, some of the practices have managed to resurface in the modern era with the Savings and Loan crisis of the late 20th century and its propensity to use “liar’s loans” (loans with no appraised collateral) to stack debt upon top of debt, as well as the banking scandals that led to the 2008 meltdown of our financial markets. As you read about the frauds perpetrated in The Moneychangers, you can readily see interesting parallels for our era. I guess Ecclesiastes was right about nothing new under the sun.

Of course, the vapid portrayal of upper-class society will be very familiar to readers of Henry James and Edith Wharton. Portions of The Moneychangers takes its cue from that style of novel. The idea of a relative innocent from outside of society being tarnished by taking up associations with the wrong people definitely has echoes in those very urbane novels. However, Sinclair regularly demonstrates his sympathies with the working class whenever the protagonist takes a broader view of what is going on. It seemed to me, however, that Sinclair found himself in search of an ending. The book ends very abruptly during his version of the “Bank Panic.” Some of the characters meet horrible ends. Some of the issues are quite unresolved at the conclusion of the novel. Yet, for all of its abrupt climax, the journey is well worth it. I well remembered my day of visiting mansions in Newport, RI when I read about the summer in Newport in the novel. The historical aspects are fascinating—all the more because they weren’t historical when Sinclair penned them. They were fresh in the memory of this muckraking socialist and they seemed fresh to me as I read them. Can my reading of King Coal be far behind?
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Jul 13, 2010 Maggie Stewart-Grant rated it 5 of 5 stars

What a powerful book based on the Panic of 1907. It is a well written quick read, and something I would have expected from Sinclair.

I'm not a banker, nor am I into high finance, but I understood the situation as it progressed through the pages. I went a time or two to research history to see if I could place real people into the characters, and I discovered soon enough that the President was, of course, Teddy Roosevelt and the major financier who "saved" the banks was J.P. Morgan.

The story is...more

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Mar 13, 2010 Patrick Sprunger rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, read-in-2010

I find it chilling that the peril of institutions that could be both too big to fail and driven to ruin by disingenuous wreckers was known exactly 100 years prior to the bubble burst of 2008. The Moneychangers is eerie in its similarity to the economic snap that began the so called Great Recession. But it is not perfectly prophetic. Sinclair's target in 1908 was the trusts. In some ways these were the same robber barons as today, but the dynamic has notable differences. Sinclair's panic has a cl...more I find it chilling that the peril of institutions that could be both too big to fail and driven to ruin by disingenuous wreckers was known exactly 100 years prior to the bubble burst of 2008. The Moneychangers is eerie in its similarity to the economic snap that began the so called Great Recession. But it is not perfectly prophetic. Sinclair's target in 1908 was the trusts. In some ways these were the same robber barons as today, but the dynamic has notable differences. Sinclair's panic has a classically literary onus. There are virtuous actors.

But there are also real historical contrasts and comparisons for the perceptive reader to note. Presidents (Theodore) Roosevelt and (George W.) Bush would deal with reckless speculation differently. The media circus devoted to the crisis would strike stunningly similar tones.

Let the following excerpt speak for itself:

"It was very interesting to Montague to read these newspapers and see the picture of events which they presented to the public. They all told what they could not avoid telling - that is, the events which were public matters; but they never by any chance gave a hint of the reasons for the happenings - you would have supposed that all these upheavals in the banking world were so many thunderbolts which had fallen from the heavens above. And each day they gave more of their space to insisting that the previous day's misfortunes were the last - that by no chance could there be any more thunderbolts to fall." (293)

The protagonist in The Moneychangers, Allan Montague, is a bit like a grown up Nick Carraway, somewhat streetwise but still possessing of his genuine essence and wiser than the great men who tower overhead. Like Fitzgerald's protagonist, Montague is ultimately unable to protect the woman in his charge. Bloodshed ensues. The financial crisis at the center of the melodrama is, in fact, caused by avarice and lust. Much like the Trojan war, the resources of economic empires and the blood of a nation are gambled in retaliation to a woman's rejection of unwanted advances.

I am a fan of Sinclair's work, from The Jungle to the Lanny Budd saga. However, I am surprised The Moneychangers doesn't occupy a more prominent place in his catalog, or indeed the progressive political literary canon. Perhaps as our understanding of the Great Recession grows, The Moneychangers will rise to prominence.

If only it had been heeded before, not after, it rang uncomfortably prophetic...
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Oct 16, 2012 Craig rated it 4 of 5 stars

Not bad - typical Sinclair with some fast action that isn't too detailed or confusing. The ending was a bit weird; not what I expected. But I can understand the book's recent uptick in popularity with the current perspective/opinion of Wall Street and the bankers by much of today's US population. Its sad that this is fiction but could easily be fact and it says something about Sinclair that he saw trends and things like this back when he wrote the book. Maybe he was ahead of his time? :)

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Nov 25, 2012 Chrissie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Yikes. I knew we were in trouble. I don't think I knew we were in this much trouble.

Moral of the story? Become a lawyer. Don't play the stocks. Listen to your internal compass. Don't mess with power hungry money grubbers.

Done, done, and done.

Also, file in the small group of books not written by Harper Lee and/or John Grisham (they totally collaborated, right?) in which a lawyer is the most morally defensible character.

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Dec 12, 2011 Tim W. Brown rated it 3 of 5 stars

Tenth of public-domain classics I never read from Project Gutenberg read on my iPod using iBooks software.

Lots of over-the-top descriptions of the obscenely rich New York Titans of
Oil, Steel, and Insurance circa 1908, as seen through the eyes of a lawyer with a conscience who enters their world. A sequel to The Metropolis.

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Aug 27, 2010 Rebekah rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: american-usa-authors, classic-authors, fiction, historical, my-favorite-authors, politics-current-events, setting-new-york

This book is so prophetic!
If you only changed nthe style of clothes, the formal way of talking then and called all the coaches, taxis, this book would be perfect for today.The shenanigans this CEO's of large corporations play where the littel guy lose all but the scoundral that started it all gets to resign with millions while tax dollars bail them out so they can give themselves more bonuses. Guess things never really change.

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Oct 14, 2011 Lisa rated it 4 of 5 stars

Sinclair's critique of Wall Street is as relevant today as when it was written in 1919.

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Aug 09, 2012 Elizabeth rated it 3 of 5 stars

Prophetic!

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Sep 17, 2010 Neil Crossan rated it 2 of 5 stars

Unlike the Jungle & Oil, this book was much shorter and focused solely on those on the financial top. Sinclair tried to cram a lot of financial tricks/schemes into under 200 pages while spending little time with his characters (and there are a lot) so you never get invested into the story. BUT any book written in 1908 and calls the Crash is worth something. Bottom line, not much has changed in the world of high finance.

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May 20, 2011 Vivi rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have this book in my iBooks library for iPhone and read it with all of my otherwise will be wasted waiting time. It's so very smooth to read. I don't know a whole lot about finance but it wasn't an obstacle to prevent me from understanding the story. And it got me very interested in knowing more about it.

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Oct 12, 2008 Matt rated it 4 of 5 stars

Like "Oil." Only not yet a movie. And with flapper type characters, set in 1907, pre-Wall Street Crash but with equal amounts of portent. A quintessentially American novel. Or something. I'm only on page 2. And it's already making me smoke...which means it's good.

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Jan 08, 2012 Katinki rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: classics

meh. not that great. again, i really need half stars. i'd have given this a 2.5.

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Aug 14, 2009 Sherry rated it 2 of 5 stars

... but have no desire to finish reading ...

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May 09, 2013 Maria marked it as to-read · review of another edition

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Shelves: wish-list

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About Upton Sinclair

Prolific American author who wrote over 90 books in many genres and was widely considered to be one of the best investigators advocating socialist views and supporting anarchist causes, he achieved considerable popularity in the first half of the 20th century.

He gained particular fame for his novel, The Jungle (1906), which dealt with conditions in the U.S. meat packing industry and caused a publ...more

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