Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist
Roger Lowenstein wrote Buffett in the mid nineties with cooperation from Buffett's family, friends, and colleagues, and it has remained the standard biography ever since. The book follows Buffett from a nervous, hyper competitive childhood in Depression era Omaha through Columbia Business School, his years learning from Benjamin Graham, the early partnerships, and the long build of Berkshire Hathaway. Lowenstein is a former Wall Street Journal reporter and treats the investments themselves with real care, walking readers through the mental habits and specific deals that shaped Buffett's record. Just as valuable is the portrait of the man, his marriage, his quirks, and his complicated relationships with money and family. It is a book for people who want to understand what actually built the fortune, not just admire it.
What you might want to know about Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Roger Lowenstein tells the definitive early biography of Warren Buffett, tracing his rise from Omaha paperboy to the world's most respected investor.
Parrish has cited Lowenstein's biography as one of the best books on Buffett and on capital allocation more broadly, and it has appeared on Farnam Street reading lists as a standard reference on the making of an investor.
Yes. Newer books cover the later years, but Lowenstein remains the strongest account of the formative decades and the intellectual roots of Buffett's approach.
Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist was written by Roger Lowenstein, published in 1995 by Random House Trade Paperbacks.
Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist is 512 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist takes most readers 8 to 11 hours to finish.
Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.