Deconstruction of the high financier: a critical essay on Ferguson's biography of Siegmund Warburg

摘要

Financial crises are not the best occasion for praising investment bankers. Ironically, Niall Ferguson's admiring biography of Siegmund Warburg, the influential banker who helped the City rise again from the ashes of the Second World War, is published at the same time as bankers are being blamed for the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Following a critical approach, this essay places Ferguson's book in the current crisis period and highlights the influence of this period on the book. The high financier tells the story of an ascetic intellectual banker, who, Ferguson claims, was completely different from today's stereotypical self-indulgent 'greedy banker'. According to a Daily Telegraph review, Ferguson portrays the image of an investment banker, 'whose financial integrity could act as a guide for today's financial industry' (Seymour 2010). This essay aims to deconstruct that image.