The rise of corporate capitalism during the late 19th & early 20th century has long been a source of lively debate among historians. Livingston here approaches this controversial topic from a fresh perspective, asking how a "new order of corporate men" made itself the preeminent source of knowledge on all significant economic issues & thereby changed the character of public & political discourse in the U.S. This is a provocative history of the Federal Reserve System, emphasizing its social, rather than narrowly economic or financial, origins. Attempts to show how corporate "elites" set the terms for the national debate over monetary reform. Includes source materials rarely examined by other scholars.