The Education of an American Dreamer

Book excerpt: Full of sharp portraits and humorous, telling descriptions of the many statesmen and financiers Peterson has known over the years, "The Education of an American Dreamer" is a richly satisfying journey through a fascinating man's life--beginning in Kearney, Nebraska, as an eight-year-old manning the cash register, to Secretary of Commerce in Nixon's paranoid White House, to the tumultuous days of Lehman Brothers, and on to the creation of The Blackstone Group, one of the great financial enterprises in recent times.