Stealing from America: A History of Corruption from Jamestown to Whitewater
About this book
Insider trading, pork-barrel projects, and corrupt politicians may all sound contemporary, but, as Nathan Miller shows in this romp through the underbelly of history, larceny and greed crossed the ocean with smallpox, prospered in the New World, and have become the bedrock of American politics. In colonial New York and Charleston, governors extended open hands to pirates that were gladly filled in exchange for a safe haven to unload booty. The Revolutionary War was fought by ill-equipped and hungry soldiers freezing on battlefields like Valley Forge while merchants and speculators sat down to sumptuous 169-dish dinners in Philadelphia, their warehouses full of supplies they sold at 2,000 percent markups. Even George Washington amassed one of the largest fortunes in America through highly dubious land speculation practices.This thievery continued through the nineteenth century with land swindles and railroad giveaways that ripped off both Native Americans and settlers; with the great robber barons, men like Cornelius Vanderbilt who made nine million during the Civil War outfitting completely unseaworthy vessels for huge profits; and with New York's Boss Tweed and his Forty Thieves. Casting his seasoned eye over this century's boondoggles, Nathan Miller uncovers the scams of Harding and the Teapot Dome in the twenties, the New Deal, World War II, and the Cold War. With Iran-Contra, HUD, and the Savings and Loan debacle in tow, the Reagan-Bush legacy follows in grand tradition. It promises to be remembered as one of the greatest eras of free-for-all plunder of the nation's coffers and threatens to put to shame, in terms of dollars pocketed, the money-grabbing greed of its illustrious predecessors. Stealing from America shows that greed, more so than notions of democracy and freedom, has been the fuel on which the engine of American government runs.