Private Finance, Public Power

Brown Brothers Harriman has never ranked among the flashier or more famous of U.S. financial institutions. But then, neither has it ever ranked among the more notorious or infamous. Formed in a merger between its two namesakes in 1931, with roots in the early 19th century, the Wall Street bank has long been a reputable going concern that, especially of late, has largely avoided the spotlight.

The staidness of the bank is precisely what attracted Zachary Karabell to writing what he calls its “secret history.” That quality, Karabell contends in his new book, Inside Money, makes it an ideal window into the prodigious, if at times destructive, history of U.S. finance. It also contains a “lesson for what capitalism can be,” something different from the winner-take-all model of the early 21st century. In the better capitalism Karabell imagines, bankers’ moderation would set guardrails against capitalism’s inevitably destructive tendencies.

There is another reason why Karabell sees Brown Brothers Harriman as a fitting subject for an epic, centuries-spanning chronicle: the influence that several of its partners wielded in forging post-World War II U.S.