The Money Culture

The Money Culture The 1980s was the most outrageous and turbulent era in the financial market since the crash of '29, not only on Wall Street but around the world. Michael Lewis, as a trainee at Salomon Brothers in New York and as an investment banker and later financial journalist, was uniquely positioned to chronicle the ambition and folly that fueled the decade.

Editorial Reviews

  From Publishers Weekly

Essays on the money-mad '80s from the author of the bestselling Liar's Poker .
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

  From Library Journal

Lewis wrote a very funny and trenchant book about life as a junior bond trader on Wall Street in the mid-1980s and called it Liar's Poker ( LJ 9/1/89). In this new book, he revisits familiar ground. In essays and pieces that originally appeared in magazines and newspapers, he strolls down Wall Street and takes aim at such targets as Michael Milken, the RJR Nabisco takeover, Louis Rukeyser, the Savings & Loan crisis, the Japanese, etc., and dissects them. There is not much in the way of true revelation here, but, with Lewis's puckish humor and inimitable writing style, the stories are entertaining and thought-provoking. And he proves that "the raw itch for money is still with us as surely as ever . . . and the money on Wall Street is better than elsewhere." This should be a big hit with the readers of his previous book. For all popular nonfiction collections.
- Richard Drezen, Merrill Lynch Lib., New York
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

  From Kirkus Reviews

With this collection of 30-odd pieces (all previously published in a half-dozen magazine and newspapers), Lewis (Liar's Poker, 1989) stakes a further claim to being the wittiest critic of private enterprise since the pseudonymous ``Adam Smith'' was plying his merry trade during the go-go 1960's. Young, gifted, and glib, the author delivers a wealth of deliciously wicked profiles on contemporary Wall Streeters, their offshore counterparts, and other predatory notables whose status is dollar denominated. Among others, he dispatches nouveau-riche Australians, Japan's kamikaze capitalists, TV-personality Louis Rukeyser (the nominal sponsor of seaborne investment seminars remarkable mainly for their ship-of-fools quality), the juvenile delinquents whose passion for speculating in financial futures has convulsed the Paris bourse, Donald Trump, LBO accessories, and other fast-trackers who show little care for socioeconomic consequences. Though largely informed by the serious purpose of capturing instances of greed, pretension, and wretched excess in the global financial village, Lewis's often antic reportage goes down with deceptive ease. A delightfully light touch is evident even in his assessment of such weighty subjects as what havoc a natural disaster (e.g., an earthquake) in Tokyo could wreak on the world's capital markets. Not every entry is a winner; there is, for example, an overlong and not very original expos‚ on the putatively upscale charge cards merchandised by American Express. On the whole, however, the compilation sets a very high standard and provides an evocative, if not precisely nostalgic, record of the recent past's megabuck madnesses. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

  Review

“Journalism of a high order. . . . Lewis's insouciance is one of his great charms as a writer, along with a graceful prose style, a mordant wit, and a thorough grounding in the world of finance. . . . One of those rare works that encapsulate and define an era.” (Fortune )

“The funniest and most trenchant commentator on the money-mad moguls reshaping our world today.” (USA Today )

“One of our most entertaining writers. . . . The Money Culture rivals Liar's Poker in giggle-inspiring quality.” (BusinessWeek )

“With Lewis's puckish humor and inimitable writing style, the stories are entertaining and thought-provoking.” (Library Journal )

  From the Publisher

6 1.5-hour cassettes --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

  About the Author

Michael Lewis, the best-selling author of Liar’s Poker, The Money Culture, The New New Thing, Moneyball, The Blind Side, Panic, Home Game, The Big Short, and Boomerang, among other works, lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife and three children.