A Disposition to Be Rich
by Geoffrey C. Ward
- Percentage of approved critics who have given this book a positive review.
Critic Rating
96%
Critic Reviews: 16
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- User rating from iDreamBooks & iTunes
Reader Rating
78%
Reader Ratings: 24
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Synopsis
Ferdinand Ward was the greatest swindler of the Gilded Age. Through his unapologetic villainy, he bankrupted Ulysses S. Grant and ran roughshod over the entire world of finance. Now, his compelling, behind-the-scenes story is told-told by his great-grandson, award-winning historian Geoffrey C. Ward. Ward was the Bernie Madoff of his day, a supposed genius at making big money fast on Wall Street who turned out to have been running a giant pyramid scheme-one... more
About Geoffrey C. Ward
- All Critics: 16
- Positive: 16
- Negative: 0
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The New York Times | 29 Jun 2012
In such self-awareness and intelligence, such grace when faced with pain and death, we feel the weight of Ward’s crime. And we, too, learn to love Grant.
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The New York Times | 13 May 2012
...“A Disposition to Be Rich” is written without malice....As George Bernard Shaw said, “If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.”
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Kansas City Star | 31 May 2012
The depth and precision of sources are outstanding, and many family letters and journals are quoted at length. “A Disposition to be Rich” is a unique family history that is also a unique literary collaboration.
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Los Angeles Times | 20 May 2012
Maybe if we had remembered the story of fast-talking Ferdie Ward, people would have taken Madoff's promises of riches a little more skeptically.
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Christian Science Monitor | 7 May 2012
What’s as impressive as Ferd Ward’s career was wayward is his great-grandson’s powers of historical synthesis.
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Seattle Times | 20 May 2012
Readers are fortunate that a writer as talented as Geoffrey C. Ward had a great-grandfather as villainous as Ferdinand Ward.
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San Francisco Chronicle | 21 May 2012
Drawing on thousands of documents preserved by members of his family, the book is an engrossing and entertaining, up-close-and-personal portrait of a compulsive swindler and sociopath, the Bernard Madoff of the Gilded Age.
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The Washington Times | 15 Jun 2012
A gripping story of chicanery in the stock market which drives home the ancient adage, “Buyer, beware!”
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The Wall Street Journal | 27 Apr 2012
The book is a beguiling reminder that human nature doesn't much change from one Gilded Age to another, although each new con merchant brings fresh wrinkles to the racket.
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Richmond Times-Dispatch | 26 Aug 2012
Madoff better hope he doesn't have for a descendant a historian as skilled as Ward.
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Star Tribune | 14 Aug 2012
The author's account, while perhaps a bit too long on multigenerational family biography, truly pegs the odious personality of the legendary Wall Street fraudster:
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Philly.com | 3 Jun 2012
He dug where none other could go – into the dark, Victorian crypt of his own family history – and unearthed a story of human flaws masked as virtues, of how those flaws are blindly, inevitably, unavoidably passed along from parents to children.
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The American Scholar
Ward does not moralize. Like Hawthorne, he’s interested not only in character but also in the consequences of one’s actions, and so he can vividly exorcise at last, without excuse or apology, his reprobate forebear.
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Journal Sentinel | 5 May 2012
...an award-winning historian..Ward has a solid perspective on American history, particularly the nation's growing pains of the second half of the 19th century.
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The New York Times | 29 Jun 2012
In such self-awareness and intelligence, such grace when faced with pain and death, we feel the weight of Ward’s crime. And we, too, learn to love Grant.
Full ReviewA Disposition to Be Rich -
The New York Times | 13 May 2012
But “A Disposition to Be Rich” is a special accomplishment. It is a most peculiar labor of love.
Full ReviewA Disposition to Be Rich