
House of Cards
How Wall Street's Gamblers Broke Capitalism
William D. Cohan(Author)
Penguin Books Ltd (Publisher)
Published on 4. February 2010
Book
Paperback/Softback
608 pages
978-0-14-103959-6 (ISBN)
Description
From the author of The Last Tycoons, William D. Cohan's international bestseller House of Cards: How Wall Street's Gamblers Broke Capitalism dissects the collapse of Bear Stearns and the beginning of the financial crisis.
It was Wall Street's toughest investment bank, taking risks where others feared to tread, run by testosterone-fuelled gamblers who hung a sign saying 'let's make nothing but money' over the trading floor.
Yet in March 2008 the 85-year-old firm Bear Stearns was brought to its knees - and global economic meltdown began. With unprecedented access to the people at the eye of the financial storm, William Cohan tells the outrageous story of how Wall Street's entire house of cards came crashing down.
'A page-turner ... hard to put down, especially thanks to its dishy, often profane, quotes from insiders ... Read it, learn - and weep'
Observer
'A fly-on-the-wall record ... Cohan is a master of this genre. He perfectly captures the raw voice of Wall Street ... like Damon Runyon updated by Martin Scorsese'
Spectator Business
'Action-packed ... gripping'
Sunday Times
'A devastating account of the foul-mouthed, money-grabbing men responsible for Bear Stearns' collapse'
Business Week
William D. Cohan was an award-winning investigative journalist before embarking on a seventeen-year career as an investment banker on Wall Street. His first book, The Last Tycoons, about Lazard, won the 2007 Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award and was a New York Times bestseller. His second book, House of Cards, also a bestseller, is an account of the last days of Bear Stearns & Co.
It was Wall Street's toughest investment bank, taking risks where others feared to tread, run by testosterone-fuelled gamblers who hung a sign saying 'let's make nothing but money' over the trading floor.
Yet in March 2008 the 85-year-old firm Bear Stearns was brought to its knees - and global economic meltdown began. With unprecedented access to the people at the eye of the financial storm, William Cohan tells the outrageous story of how Wall Street's entire house of cards came crashing down.
'A page-turner ... hard to put down, especially thanks to its dishy, often profane, quotes from insiders ... Read it, learn - and weep'
Observer
'A fly-on-the-wall record ... Cohan is a master of this genre. He perfectly captures the raw voice of Wall Street ... like Damon Runyon updated by Martin Scorsese'
Spectator Business
'Action-packed ... gripping'
Sunday Times
'A devastating account of the foul-mouthed, money-grabbing men responsible for Bear Stearns' collapse'
Business Week
William D. Cohan was an award-winning investigative journalist before embarking on a seventeen-year career as an investment banker on Wall Street. His first book, The Last Tycoons, about Lazard, won the 2007 Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award and was a New York Times bestseller. His second book, House of Cards, also a bestseller, is an account of the last days of Bear Stearns & Co.
Reviews / Votes
It is too early to say who will emerge as the definitive chroniclers of this crisis, but this book by William Cohan ... seems likely to end up as one of the key texts * The Observer * A riveting, blow-by-blow account * Economist * Read it, learn and weep * Businessweek * First drafts of history don't get much better than this * Bloomberg * A fly-on-the-wall record ... Cohan is a master of this genre. He perfectly captures the raw voice of Wall Street ... like Damon Runyon updated by Martin Scorsese -- Martin Vander Weyer * Spectator Business *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 129 mm
Thickness: 36 mm
Weight
717 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-14-103959-6 (9780141039596)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
05/2009
1st Edition
Penguin Books Ltd
€10.99
Available for download
Person
William Cohan is an award-winning journalist and veteran of Wall Street. His previous book, The Last Tycoons, won the 2007 Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award and was a New York Times bestseller. A regular on the pages of the Financial Times and Fortune, the deal for this book was big news in the Wall Street Journal.