I have a lot of pride in the company that I work for, even though I sometimes get really frustrated by my job.

And of course, being the obsessive sort that I am, I have to learn everything I can about the history of my firm … which means that even though I lived it (well, as much as any low-level employee can), I had to pick up a copy of Patricia Beard’s Blue Blood & Mutiny: The Fight for the Soul of Morgan Stanley, which details the 2005 ouster of Phil Purcell as Chairman and CEO, and John Mack’s triumphant return to the company he helped create by co-orchestrating the merger between Morgan Stanley (of which he was president at the time) and Purcell’s Dean Witter Discover.

But to understand any of this, it’s best to get a deeper knowledge of the culture of the firm by reading Ron Chernow’s The House of Morgan and Jean Strouse’s Morgan: American Financier.