Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System--And Themselves

By Andrew Ross Sorkin

Book Overview

Named a Best Book of the Year by: The Economist, The Financial Times, Business Week , and 800-CEO-Read Winner of the Gerald Loeb Award for Best Business Book " Too Big To Fail is too good to put down. . . . It is the story of the actors in the most extraordinary financial spectacle in 80 years, and it is told brilliantly." -- The Economist "Vigorously reported, superbly organized . . . For those of us who didn't pursue MBAs--and have the penny-ante salaries to prove it --Sorkin's book offers a clear, cogent explanation of what happened and why it matters." --Julia Keller, Chicago Tribune "Sorkin's prodigious reporting and lively writing put the reader in the room for some of the biggest-dollar conference calls in history. It's an entertaining, brisk book." -- Paul M. Barrett, The New York Times Book Review "Sorkin's densely detailed and astonishing narrative of the epic financial crisis of 2008 is an extraordinary achievement that will be hard to surpass as the definitive account." --John Gapper, Financial Times A brilliantly reported true-life thriller that goes behind the scenes of the financial crisis on Wall Street and in Washington, the basis for the HBO film In one of the most gripping financial narratives in decades, Andrew Ross Sorkin-a New York Times columnist and one of the country's most respected financial reporters-delivers the first definitive blow- by-blow account of the epochal economic crisis that brought the world to the brink. Through unprecedented access to the players involved, he re-creates all the drama and turmoil of these turbulent days, revealing never-before-disclosed details and recounting how, motivated as often by ego and greed as by fear and self-preservation, the most powerful men and women in finance and politics decided the fate of the world's economy.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0143120271
• ISBN13: 9780143120278
• Release Date: August 1970
• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Length: 640 Pages
• Weight: 1.21 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 5.5" x 8.4"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 12 and higher

Customer Reviews

A Real Page Turner

This is an excellent book that reads like something that Dan Brown might have written. But its real. The part that amazed me was the level of detail Sorkin was able to get about behind the scenes conversations that took place. Stuff about how people such as Dick Fuld of Lehman reacted to the problems when it was becoming clear that the company was going down and he was in denial. How Paulson was reacting to things when there were no rules about what to do. But probably the most interesting parts were how the different personalities were reacting while the ground was shifting under them. At the peak, many of the people involved were literally working 24 hours a day highlighted by a phone call made to Vikram Pandit, CEO of Citibank at 3 am telling how a deal he made at midnight for Wachovia had instead been trumped by another and that that deal had already been signed and blessed by the government. How major decisions were being made on the run and how solid institutions became institutions on the brink in a matter of hours. The book also explains how companies like Barclays and China Investment Corporation were working behind the scenes as well how Paulson, Geithener and others in the government were scrambling to keep things from collapsing. There is a lot of Monday Morning Quarterbacking going on and some of the things these people did may not have been the best, but they pulled it off and we should all be grateful. But there some bad guys, namely the short sellers and as usual some in congress. The book makes clear that out of control short selling added fuel to the flames that were occurring and that when we were facing this emergency some members of Congress were focused on their own butt instead of doing what was needed. There is a huge cast in this book and its is sometimes hard to keep the people and their roles straight, but make the effort. You will be rewarded.

Strong Recommendation

I have read many books on last year's economic crisis, and this book if not the best is certainly one of them. It is a well-written description on literally a day to day basis of the events in NYC and DC that changed our economic landscape forever. The book allows us to know the thoughts of many of the major participants and details the reasons for the actions taken, and shows us how close we came to an economic collapse. I strongly recommend it. Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System---and Themselves