The rich down the ages

There is a steady stream of worthy publications to fill the shelves of the most ambitious and dedicated IFA, and then there are books which won't help in their business in the slightest but will probably stay on the bookcase for longer. One of these is The Rich and How They Got That Way by Cynthia Crossen, the senior editor on the Wall Street Journal published this month by Nicholas Brealey Publishing. It is not, as the clumsy title suggests, a self-help book promising to set out a route-map up the yellow-brick road to wealth. What it is, is an entertainingly written history of the ways...