“In his lively, absorbing look at the early history of America’s financial markets, Wright brings to life the financiers and their institutions with colorful prose that teases out the human drama beneath the ledgers and account books. . . . Both a history of the nation’s first financial capital and a surprisingly understandable financial primer . . . the book will appeal to readers interested in America’s economic history and those wanting a better handle on banking and investing.”

Publishers Weekly

"Students of early national and financial history will profit from this work. Wright’s narrative resurrects much long-forgotten informaition, and his analysis effectively underpins his broad thesis: Without financial markets and institutions to serve them, economic growth and modernization are impossible. Wright is at his best when explaining with remarkable clarity, the complex financial conditions that accounted for Chestnut Street’s dominance."

Carl Lane | Journal of American History

"If looking for an entertaining stroll through the rise and fall of Philadelphia as the hub of American finance from the late colonial period to the Bank War, one needs to go no further. . . . Effectively bridging academic and non-academic audiences is a difficult feat indeed, but one that we have come to expect from a scholar as prolific as Wright."

Peter L. Rousseau | EH.Net

"An outstanding, accessible account of Philadelphia’s status as the nation’s first financial center. Robert Wright has written a breezy, clear, and humorous history of the city’s central role as the American capital of banking and related industries."

Kyle Farley | Pennsylvania Magazine of History

"Wright, a distinguished historian of early American finance, has written an unusual book that will interest both history buffs and academic historians. . . . The prose is lively and the explanations clear; the short discussion of money is perhaps the best introduction to that complex subject now available, and can be read with profit by any scholar forced to confront the complexities of monetary history."

Russell R. Menard | American Historical Review

"Wright reminds us that prior to Wall Street’s ascendance in the 1830s, Chestnut Street in Philadelphia was the nation’s financial center and the birthplace of some of America’s most important financial innovations. . . . Wright succeeds in his aim to engage both the scholarly and general reader and has produced an important contribution to the history of early American finance."

Daniel Holt | Enterprise & Society