The heavy old man with the huge ruby nose sat in the committee room. He was seventy-five years old, and he had been called to testify about what he had done in his life. He was believed to be the head of a Money Trust, which could create and avert panics on Wall Street. He was said to have saved the gold standard of the United States. He was known to be the most powerful financier in America and perhaps in the world. His name was J. Pierpont Morgan.John Pierpont Morgan gave his name to an investment bank which still bears his name a hundred years after his death. In this biography, Andrew Sinclair chronicles his life and times. Born in 1837, Morgan’s story is a cautionary tale of dedicating your days to earning money. America was going through a period of massive expansion in the nineteenth century. The idea of ‘manifest destiny’ was driving thousands of families west, while in the East New York welcomed immigrants and hucksters. J.P. Morgan was a scion who drove American economic expansion.Andrew SinclairMy Friend Judas. He was nominated as a member of the Apostles, but was not accepted, supposedly because he would not keep the society’s oath of secrecy. Sinclair returned to Cambridge to take his doctorate and became a Founding Fellow of Churchill College, where he was director of Historical Studies. He went on to direct the film version of the Dylan Thomas story Under Milk Wood, and won the Somerset Maugham Prize for his book The Better Half: The Emancipation of the American Woman. Sinclair has also written biographies of Jack London, Bob Dylan, John Ford and Francis Bacon, among others, and has authored several works of fiction.Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent digital publisher. For more information on our titles please sign up to our newsletter at www.endeavourpress.com. Each week you will receive updates on free and discounted ebooks. Follow us on Twitter: @EndeavourPress and on Facebook via http://on.fb.me/1HweQV7. We are always interested in hearing from our readers. Endeavour Press believes that the future is now.