House of Cards, William D. Cohan
House of Cards, William D. Cohan
2 Rating(s)
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House of Cards
A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street

Author: William D. Cohan

Narrator: Alan Sklar

Unabridged: 25 hr 17 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 04/20/2009


Synopsis

In March 2008, Bear Stearns, a swashbuckling eighty-four-year-old financial institution, was forced to sell itself to JPMorgan Chase for an outrageously low price in a deal brokered by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who was desperately trying to prevent the impending catastrophic market crash. But mere months before, an industry-wide boom had "the Bear" clocking a record high stock price. How did a giant investment bank with $18 billion in cash on hand disappear in a mere ten days? In this tour de force, Cohan provides a minute-by-minute account of the events that brought America's second Gilded Age to an end.

Filled with intimate portraits of the major players, high-end gossip, and smart financial analysis, House of Cards recounts in delicious narrative form the dramatic events behind the fall of Bear Stearns and what it revealed about the financial world's progression from irrational boom to cataclysmic bust. House of Cards is the Rosetta Stone for understanding the dramatic and the unprecedented events that have reshaped Wall Street and global finance in the past two years.

About William D. Cohan

William D. Cohan, a former award-winning investigative newspaper reporter in Raleigh, North Carolina, worked on Wall Street as an investment banker for seventeen years, eventually becoming managing director at JPMorgan Chase. He is the bestselling author of The Last Tycoons, winner of the 2007 FT/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award, and a frequent contributor to CNBC, Fortune, and the Financial Times. William lives in New York City and Columbia County, New York.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Kemper on October 06, 2011

After I read Too Big to Fail, I just hadn’t gotten enough stories about greedy assholes so I figured I‘d read this to angry up my blood some more. Actually, Too Big to Fail began after the Bear Stearns meltdown so even though there was some background there, I felt like I hadn’t gotten the whole sto......more

Goodreads review by Hannah on March 10, 2025

This is a dense book, and though written for Wall Street laypersons, I don't know that anyone who isn't familiar with Wall Street, banking, regulations, SEC, or anything related to this finance world would really enjoy the book nor grasp most of it. There is a lot of technical discussion, superficia......more

Goodreads review by Harold on July 15, 2009

The book appears to have been raced out, and is somewhat disorganized, covering much of the material twice. It isn't a compelling read, but if you are interested in the subject matter specifically of the fall of Bear Stearns, it covers it pretty thoroughly. But it just deals with the fall of Bear St......more

Goodreads review by Aleksander on June 17, 2023

"House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street" is a gripping and eye-opening account that exposes the dark underbelly of the financial world. In this meticulously researched book, the author provides a shocking narrative of the excessive greed, corruption, and unethical practi......more

Goodreads review by Derek on January 14, 2013

William Cohan, a former investment banker, gives us in "House of Cards" a chilling, almost minute-by-minute account of the 10, vertigo-inducing days that one year ago revealed Bear Stearns to be a flimsy house of cards in a perfect storm. He shows how quickly rumors about liquidity led to a run on th......more