An engaging history of the bank and its place in American financial history ... Karabell, who has worked in banking himself, tells a brisk and muscular story, though at times one wishes for more financial details on the firm and its biggest deals (the partners’ famous discretion may have made this impossible, however) ... There is another possibility, too. The prudence, discretion, and moderation that defined Brown Brothers for much of its history reflected the values of the business community it served and, to an extent, of America as a whole. As those values have lost their vitality, it was inevitable that the banking industry would change. It may be, in other words, that we get the bankers we deserve.
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