First published 2010
Roger Lowenstein reconstructs America's most severe financial meltdown since the 1930s through detailed reporting and insider access. Drawing from 180 interviews with Wall Street executives and government leaders, he traces how mortgage speculation triggered systemic collapse. The narrative follows key figures like Angelo Mozilo, who proliferated subprime lending across the nation, and examines how credit rating agencies packaged risky mortgages as safe investments. Lowenstein profiles banking leaders including Dick Fuld at Lehman Brothers and Jamie Dimon at JP Morgan, alongside government officials like Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, Tim Geithner, and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke as they navigated the crisis. The author demonstrates how academic financial models failed catastrophically and explains the fundamental concepts of liquidity and capital that drove the 2008 collapse. This account reveals how America embraced dangerous debt practices and speculative mortgage lending that ultimately destroyed the traditional Wall Street system.
Genres: business, economics, 21st-century, finance, academic, american-history
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: insider-access, investigative-journalism
Setting: America, Wall Street
Period: 2008
368 pages · Hardcover · Penguin Press