Nicholas Von Hoffman

Whatever one might say about America's original business giants - the Carnegies, the Morgans, the du Ponts - they built America, virtually inventing modern business techniques in the process, so as to reap profits while improving every American's standard of living. Today's rich and powerful, on the other hand, accumulate vast wealth through sleight-of-hand paper-shuffling, business song-and-dance routines like "leveraged buyouts," and swapping blips...

Early in the Great Depression, graduate student Allan Archibald's research into organized crime in Chicago involves him with the Capone gang, while his banker father becomes a dupe of an unscrupulous financial wizard.