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The epic story of FDR’s fight for the soul of American capitalism—from award-winning journalist Diana B. Henriques, author of The Wizard of Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust

Taming the Street describes how President Franklin D. Roosevelt battled to regulate Wall Street in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash and the ensuing Great Depression. With deep reporting and vivid storytelling, Diana B. Henriques takes readers back to a time when America’s financial landscape was a jungle ruled by the titans of vast wealth, largely unrestrained by government. Roosevelt ran for office in 1932 vowing to curb that ruthless capitalism and make the world of finance safer for ordinary savers and investors. His deeply personal campaign to tame the Street is one of the great untold dramas in American history.

Success in this political struggle was far from certain for FDR and his New Deal allies, who included the political dynasty builder Joseph P. Kennedy and the future Supreme Court justice William O. Douglas. Wall Street’s old guard, led by New York Stock Exchange president Richard Whitney, fought every new rule to the “last legal ditch.” That clash—between two sharply different visions of financial power and federal responsibility—has shaped how “other people’s money” is managed in the United States to this day.

As inequality once again reaches Jazz Age levels, Henriques brings to life a time when the system worked—an idealistic moment when ordinary Americans knew what had to be done and supported leaders who could do it. A vital history and a riveting true-life thriller, Taming the Street raises an urgent and troubling question: What does capitalism owe to the common good?

We’re all aware, or, at least, we should be, of all the good created by the Roosevelt Administration. The CCC, WPA, TVA. Social Security. But less well known are the group of Acts created to rein in the corrupt system that controlled the banks and Wall Street. Under the SEC, acts such as the Glass-Steagall Act, which effectively separated commercial banking from investment banking and created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, would make it safer for the less well off to buy stock. Parts of the Act were, ironically, repealed during the Clinton Administration.

The book follows FDR’s efforts, and those who worked to stop him, during mostly his first two terms. It follows the career of Bill Douglas, head of the SEC before becoming a Supreme Court judge; the work of Joe Kennedy, before he became enthralled with the fascist rulers of Germany and Italy. But then the War would come, and interfere with much of what FDR still wanted to do.

There is so much more to this book. It truly does show what can be accomplished by men of honor and dignity. What we could have if we only paid attention. Over the years, the Extreme Right has continued their fight to undo his work, but many of the New Deal programs are still with us. With any luck, they’ll continue to be so.

Is there a bit of hero worship regarding FDR? You betcha.