Barbarians At The Gate

The battle for the control of RJR Nabisco in the Autumn of 1988, which became the largest and most dramatic corporate takeover in American history, sent shock-waves through the international business world and became a symbol of the greed, excess and egotism of the eighties. Barbarians at the Gate recounts this two-month battle with breathtaking pace and flair, and transports back to the Wall Street empire before it crumbled, through the boardroom doors, into the midnight meetings, the betrayals, the deal makers and publicity flaks, into a world where - as Nabisco CEO Ross Johnson put it - 'a few million dollars are lost in the sands of time'. Twenty years on, the world is once again recovering from a period of financial extravagance and irresponsibility. This revised edition brings the ultimate business thriller up to date for a new generation of readers.

All the suspense of a first-rate thriller - one of the finest, most compelling accounts of what happened to corporate America and Wall Street in the 1980s., One of the greatest business books ever written, It's hard to imagine a better story, The most bizarre financial mock-epic of our age. Read it open-mouthed; wonder and shudder.

Bryan Burrough is a reporter for the Wall Street Journal in New York. In 1987 he won the John Hancock Award for Excellence in Business and Financial Journalism. John Helyar worked for the Wall Street Journal for nine years. He is now a senior editor of Southpoint, a business magazine based in Atlanta, Georgia.