Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Dec 2008
352 pages
Genre: History, Current Affairs and Religion
Publication Information
A masterful account of today's money culture, showing how the underpricing of risk leads to catastrophe.
When it comes to markets, the first deadly sin is greed. Michael Lewis is our jungle guide through five of the most violent and costly upheavals in recent financial history: the crash of '87, the Russian default (and the subsequent collapse of Long-Term Capital Management), the Asian currency crisis of 1999, the Internet bubble, and the current sub-prime mortgage disaster. With his trademark humor and brilliant anecdotes, Lewis paints the mood and market factors leading up to each event, weaves contemporary accounts to show what people thought was happening at the time, and then, with the luxury of hindsight, analyzes what actually happened and what we should have learned from experience.
As he proved in Liar's Poker, The New New Thing, and Moneyball, Lewis is without peer in his understanding of market forces and human foibles. He is also, arguably, the funniest serious writer in America.
"The narrative is certainly elegant and the arguments are on-target ... but readers seeking serious solutions to our current woes will be disappointed." - Publishers Weekly.
"Informative and timely, it is an excellent book for a wide range of library patrons." - Booklist.
"Timely and highly readable, this work includes in one accessible source two decades' worth of some of the best writing on the various crises and panics." - Library Journal.
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Michael Lewis was born October 15, 1960 in New Orleans, LA. He graduated from Princeton with a BA in Art History, and in 1985 received his master's degree from the London School of Economics. Salomon Brothers hired him as a bond salesman shortly after. He moved to New York for training and witnessed firsthand the cutthroat, scruple-free culture that was Wall Street in the 1980s. Several months later, armed only with what he'd learned in training, Lewis returned to London and spent the next three years dispensing investment advice to Salomon's well-heeled clientele. He earned hundreds of thousands of dollars and survived a 1987 hostile takeover attempt at the firm. Nonetheless, he grew disillusioned with his job and left Salomon to write an account of his experiences in the industry. ...
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