Arts Culture
Top Five Business Books From Ammann To Wessel
Literary Spotlight
By JAMES PRESSLEY, Bloomberg
Given the glut of business books, we’re often asked for recommendations. Here are five of our favorites from the past three months, arranged by the authors’ surnames.
“The King of Oil: The Secret Lives of Marc Rich” by Daniel Ammann. Published by St. Martin’s Press.
Long ago, in the courtrooms of ancient Athens, hubris was a crime and judges weren’t shy about convicting. Sometimes the penalty was left in the hands of a higher authority.
“After hubris,” the saying went, “comes Nemesis,” the goddess of justice who visited Earth in the form of a goose. Not even King Croesus was able to buy Nemesis off.
Ammann’s biography tells the tale of how billionaire commodity trader Marc Rich -- the inventor of the spot-oil market and white-collar fugitive for almost two decades -- did what Croesus could not and cooked the goose.
“Meltdown Iceland” by Roger Boyes. Published by Bloomsbury.
As Iceland’s bubble bulged in 2007, Robert Aliber drove around Reykjavik and counted cranes. His conclusion:
“You’ve got a year before the crisis hits,” the University of Chicago economist told Icelanders. The frenzied construction implied that speculation and unsustainable borrowing were rife.
The warning was ignored, writes Roger Boyes in “Meltdown Iceland,” an energetic exploration of lessons to be drawn from a statelet that skidded toward bankruptcy a year ago this month.
“Last Man Standing: The Ascent of Jamie Dimon and JPMorgan Chase” by Duff McDonald. Published by Simon & Schuster.
Business heroes are in short supply. Finding a business- banker hero quickly takes us to “camel through the eye of a needle” territory.
McDonald’s biography identifies one of the few executives with a positive story worth telling. Jamie Dimon has emerged from the financial crisis with his reputation intact. He is banking and finance’s most successful, most trusted and most important leader.
“This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly” by Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff. Published by Princeton.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have $1,000 for every time a pundit proclaims an era of endless prosperity, consigning booms and busts to the dumpster of history?
The next time you hear that canard (and you will) pour yourself a single malt and dip into this landmark study. Wherever you open the book, you’ll find proof that debt-fueled expansions have ended in financial ruin for hundreds of years.
“In Fed We Trust: Ben Bernanke’s War on the Great Panic” by David Wessel. Published by Crown Business.
In 2002, Ben Bernanke gave a speech titled “Deflation” in which he explained how a central bank can fight falling prices even when its target interest rate is zero.
Little did he know that five years later, in the role of Federal Reserve chairman, he would be digging into that emergency tool kit to prevent the U.S. financial system from falling into the abyss. Wessel tells the story of how Bernanke and a handful of policy makers worked around the clock, making ad hoc decisions on little sleep and with limited information.
“The King of Oil: The Secret Lives of Marc Rich” by Daniel Ammann. Published by St. Martin’s Press.
Long ago, in the courtrooms of ancient Athens, hubris was a crime and judges weren’t shy about convicting. Sometimes the penalty was left in the hands of a higher authority.
“After hubris,” the saying went, “comes Nemesis,” the goddess of justice who visited Earth in the form of a goose. Not even King Croesus was able to buy Nemesis off.
Ammann’s biography tells the tale of how billionaire commodity trader Marc Rich -- the inventor of the spot-oil market and white-collar fugitive for almost two decades -- did what Croesus could not and cooked the goose.
“Meltdown Iceland” by Roger Boyes. Published by Bloomsbury.
As Iceland’s bubble bulged in 2007, Robert Aliber drove around Reykjavik and counted cranes. His conclusion:
“You’ve got a year before the crisis hits,” the University of Chicago economist told Icelanders. The frenzied construction implied that speculation and unsustainable borrowing were rife.
The warning was ignored, writes Roger Boyes in “Meltdown Iceland,” an energetic exploration of lessons to be drawn from a statelet that skidded toward bankruptcy a year ago this month.
“Last Man Standing: The Ascent of Jamie Dimon and JPMorgan Chase” by Duff McDonald. Published by Simon & Schuster.
Business heroes are in short supply. Finding a business- banker hero quickly takes us to “camel through the eye of a needle” territory.
McDonald’s biography identifies one of the few executives with a positive story worth telling. Jamie Dimon has emerged from the financial crisis with his reputation intact. He is banking and finance’s most successful, most trusted and most important leader.
“This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly” by Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff. Published by Princeton.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have $1,000 for every time a pundit proclaims an era of endless prosperity, consigning booms and busts to the dumpster of history?
The next time you hear that canard (and you will) pour yourself a single malt and dip into this landmark study. Wherever you open the book, you’ll find proof that debt-fueled expansions have ended in financial ruin for hundreds of years.
“In Fed We Trust: Ben Bernanke’s War on the Great Panic” by David Wessel. Published by Crown Business.
In 2002, Ben Bernanke gave a speech titled “Deflation” in which he explained how a central bank can fight falling prices even when its target interest rate is zero.
Little did he know that five years later, in the role of Federal Reserve chairman, he would be digging into that emergency tool kit to prevent the U.S. financial system from falling into the abyss. Wessel tells the story of how Bernanke and a handful of policy makers worked around the clock, making ad hoc decisions on little sleep and with limited information.
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