Confidence Men LP - Large Print by Ron Suskind (Paperback)

About the Book

AcclaimedPulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind, authorof the New York Times bestselling The Way of the World, The OnePercent Doctrine, and The Price of Loyalty, gives anexplosive inside account of an Obama White House overwhelmed by the globalfinancial crisis and the political and economic consequences still being felttoday. Readers of Michael Lewis s The Big Short, John Heilemann and Mark Halperin s GameChange, and Andrew Ross Sorkin s Too Big toFail will be riveted by Suskind s illuminating, in-depth investigation of the financial meltdown. Rooted in hundreds of hoursof interviews with key members of the Obama administration, including thePresident himself, Suskind s expose offers aneyewitness account of the most momentous events in the history of globalfinance."

Book Synopsis

AcclaimedPulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind, authorof the New York Times bestselling The Way of the World, The OnePercent Doctrine, and The Price of Loyalty, gives anexplosive inside account of an Obama White House overwhelmed by the globalfinancial crisis--and the political and economic consequences still being felttoday. Readers of Michael Lewis's The Big Short, John Heilemann and Mark Halperin's GameChange, and Andrew Ross Sorkin's Too Big toFail will be riveted by Suskind's illuminating, in-depth investigation of the financial meltdown. Rooted in hundreds of hoursof interviews with key members of the Obama administration, including thePresident himself, Suskind's exposé offers aneyewitness account of the most momentous events in the history of globalfinance.

From the Back Cover

In this gripping, revelatory, and brilliantly reported book, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Suskind tells for the first time the full story of America's financial meltdown and an untested new president charged with commanding Washington, taming Wall Street, rescuing an economy on the verge of collapse, and restoring the confidence of a shaken nation.

Suskind moves from the frenzied trading floors of lower Manhattan to the power corridors inside the Beltway and introduces a larger-than-life cast of politicians and advisors, titans of high finance, reformers, lobbyists, and others who faced a crisis unlike anything they had ever imagined. Based on hundreds of interviews, filled with piercing insight and startling disclosures, Confidence Men brings into focus the unprecedented struggle between the nation's two capitals--New York and Washington, one of private gain, the other of public purpose--that continues to divide and roil America.

Review Quotes

"The White House says Suskind talked to too many disgruntled former staffers. But he seems to have talked to a lot of gruntled ones, too. The overarching portrait of chaos, lack of intellectual depth and absence of political wisdom, from a Pulitzer Prize-winning former reporter at this paper, rings true." - The Wall Street Journal
"The work that went into Confidence Men cannot be denied. Suskind conducted hundreds of interviews. He spoke to almost every member of the Obama administration, including the President. He quotes memos no one else has published. He gives you scenes that no one else has managed to capture." - Ezra Klein, The New York Review of Books
"This inside account of the Obama economic team contains enough damning on-the-record quotes to give it the ring of truth despite White House efforts to discredit the narrative of infighting and missed opportunities. Read it and weep. It reminds me of the post-Iraq invasion books that documented a similar failure to rise to the enormity of the problem, whether the insurgency was in Iraq or on Wall Street." - Eleanor Clift, Newsweek
"Savvy and informative. . . . The most ambitious treatment of this period yet. . . . Suskind's book often reads like Halberstam's The Best and the Brightest. But the quagmire isn't a neo-Vietnam like Afghanistan--it's the economy." - Frank Rich, New York
"A searing new book. . . . Suskind has a flair for taking material he's harvested to create narratives with a novelistic sense of drama." - Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
"The book paints a harsh, stark portrait of a president in over his head. . . . Suskind makes a compelling case that Obama was able to win the election because he was talking to the right people." - The Daily Beast
"This is wonkish stuff, but the you-are-there, personality-driven nature of Suskind's writing is compelling." - Bethany McLean, The Washington Post
"The book of the week, maybe the book of the month, is Ron Suskind's Confidence Men. Suskind has a knack for persuading people in high places to talk frankly to him, on the record as well as off. His books make news. . . . Confidence Men is a detailed narrative of the Administration's response-sometimes frantic, sometimes sluggish, sometimes both-to the financial and economic catastrophe it inherited, as experienced from the inside. . . . Suskind, without stanching the flow of his tale, is able to elucidate how it came to pass that the Reagan-through-Bush II reign of financial regulation. . . created a monstrous 'debt machine.'" - Hendrik Hertzberg, The New Yorker
"The book of the week, maybe the book of the month, is Ron Suskind's Confidence Men. . . . A detailed narrative of the Administration's response-sometimes frantic, sometimes sluggish, sometimes both-to the financial and economic catastrophe it inherited, as experienced from the inside." - Hendrik Hertzberg, The New Yorker
"This narrative . . . keeps you reading long after you've absorbed the White House's petty criticisms about the book. The portrait of Obama that emerges here is sympathetic, even though Suskind addresses the president's failings. . . . Though the book toggles between Washington and Wall Street, the freshest material comes from Suskind's deep access to the West Wing." - Bloomberg
"Ron Suskind's book is . . . the one that makes the most sense. . . . The shudder-inducing bits of Confidence Men come when the team is too optimistic about how its policies will play out. The confidence allows them to move on too quickly. It seeps into every other mistake." - Slate