Taming the Street

The dramatic story of FDR’s fight to save the soul of American capitalism—from award-winning New York Times journalist Diana Henriques, author of Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust

Taming the Street tells the epic story of the FDR's battle to regulate Wall Street for the very first time in the wake of the Crash of 1929 that ushered in the Great Depression. Deeply reported and vividly told, it provides a trip back to a time when the power of concentrated wealth in America arguably exceeded that of the federal government. Roosevelt's campaign to curb the excesses of the market, end reckless speculation, and mitigate the disastrous boom-and-bust cycle is one of the great untold dramas in American history, and as it unfolded, its outcome was far from clear.

Henriques has written this book for two main reasons: First, because it’s a vital history that needs to be preserved and properly told; and as importantly, because the battle lines that were drawn in that time are the very same battle lines that define our politics today. Taming the Street is a book rooted in the drama of the 1930s, but as inequality in America has again reached Jazz Age levels, one of Henriques’ many ambitions for the book is to bring to life a time when the system worked in the public interest. An idealistic time when we knew what had to be done, and summoned the will to do it, against the power of an American oligarchy.

Taming the Street is a riveting, true-life thriller that raises an urgent and troubling question: What does capitalism owe to the common good?