Author:Philip Augar
A revolution took place in the City in the 80s and 90s. The cosy club of British merchant banking collapsed in a series of sell-outs, closures and scandals. This left the City dominated by US and European giants. Was this the inevitable result ofglobalization or did mismanagement play a part? This is the first book to look at how and why the British merchant banks and brokers sold out, and where that leaves us. Augar tells this fascinating story with pace and drama, taking us through the Thatcher years, the crash of 1987, Big Bang, and the aggressive invasion of the American banks. He looks at why the British banks failed to keep pace with the Americans, what this says about the way they were run, and what this means for the future.
Revelatory, engrossing, penetrating ... Cohan revels in a good bust-up
—— Financial TimesThe best analysis yet of Goldman's increasingly tangled web of conflicts
Startling ... lifts the lid on Goldman's pivotal role in the meltdown
—— Mail on SundayCohan portrays a firm that has grown so large and hungry that it's no longer long-term greedy but short-term vicious. And that's the wonder - and horror - of Goldman Sachs
—— BusinessweekCohan's book tells of bitter power struggles and business cock-ups
—— GuardianA definitive account of the most profitable and influential investment bank of the modern era
—— New York Times Book ReviewThe conviction that the market will take care of everything went unchallenged until this summer - by the seemingly unlikely combination of two economics editors from the Guardian and the Mail on Sunday
—— Katherine WhitehornIn tragic-comic detail, they show how debacles like Northern Rock and banks lending non-existent money to customers has led to disaster for millions of ordinary people, one perpetrated by an unaccountable financial elite whom they dub The New Olympians
—— ArenaA riveting and frankly alarming account of the state of the economy... I doubt I will read a more important book this year
—— Mail on SundayI don't think I have ever needed a book more than I needed this book.
—— Dr Soph, Sunday Times bestselling author of A Manual for Being HumanYou will not be able to put this book down.
—— The IndependentI inhaled it in one sitting. It made my shoulders drop three inches by the time I'd read the first chapter. Why? It is a permission slip to escape 'the achievement trap'.
—— MetroIncredibly vivid
—— Press AssociationI've read lots of books about economics this last year. This is one of the very best... Superb
—— StandardA fluent and indirect paean to Keynesian economics... this resonates with the contemporary turmoil in global financial markets
—— Financial TimesAhamed unravels the story of the most terrible financial collapse in history from the perspective of the four men who were largely responsible: the leading central bankers in the United States, Britain, France and Germany
—— Mail on Sunday[a] very readable portrait of the bankers who allowed the Great Depression to happen
—— TelegraphPossibly the most important political book that I have read since The Spirit Level
—— Stuart Weir, co-founder of Charter 88, former editor of the New StatesmanHe has prised the lid off an important and terrifying can of worms
—— Martin Vander Weyer , Literary ReviewLively and well written book
—— Toby Young , Mail on SundayA welcome account of how the sun is never allowed to set on the British empire's old islands, whose fiscal pirates hoard the tax-free treasures of the rich
—— Geoffrey Robertson , New Statesman, Books of the YearShaxson delves into capitalism's secret nooks and tells us about how a culture of secrecy can perpetuate itself. Very interesting
—— William Leith , Evening StandardA compelling read [...] an important and very much a live topic, it'll take you a few hours to read the book but it will be a worthwhile investment of time
—— Peter Magee , BookbagWhat makes this such a good read for the layman is that the author employs all his journalistic skill (he used to work at Reuters) to illustrate his arguments and uses real examples to real examples to illustrate complex issues
—— John Arlidge , Sunday TimesThis book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the world we live in
—— Brian Maye , Irish TimesThis engrossing book about the offshore banking racket, with its eye-opening scrutiny of tax havens and the suited scoundrels who profit from them, will make you think again about the murkier side of the City...This first-rate forensic work ends with a plea that the closed City "must be abolished and submerged into a...fully democratic London"
—— Boyd Tonkin , Independent[An] informed polemic against finance capital
—— Oliver Kamm , The TimesNow more than a decade old, this is still the best introduction to the world of tax havens
—— Economist, *Summer Reads of 2022*