Share <Embed>

Buy New

$13.97

List Price: $15.95
Save: $1.98 (12%)

In Stock.

Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.

Turn on 1-Click ordering for this browser

This item ships to France. Want it Monday, Dec. 10? Order within and choose AmazonGlobal Priority Shipping at checkout. Learn more

Deliver to France

Buy Used

$8.29

Deliver to France

Used: Good | Details

Sold by luckydogbooks

Fulfilled by Amazon

Turn on 1-Click ordering for this browser

Added to

Unable to add item to List. Please try again.

Other Sellers on Amazon

Add to Cart

$13.99
& FREE Shipping on eligible orders. Details

Sold by: Marketplace Prime

Have one to sell? Sell on Amazon

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See all 5 images

Follow the Author

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine Paperback – February 1, 2011

by Michael Lewis (Author)

2,446 customer reviews

See all 35 formats and editions Hide other formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

"Please retry"

$6.79

—

—

"Please retry"

$14.63

Paperback

"Please retry"

$13.97

Audible Audiobook, Unabridged

"Please retry"

—

—

Audio CD, Audiobook, CD, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$14.61

Arrives before Christmas. Choose delivery option in checkout.

The #1 New York Times bestseller: "It is the work of our greatest financial journalist, at the top of his game. And it's essential reading."―Graydon Carter, Vanity Fair

The real story of the crash began in bizarre feeder markets where the sun doesn't shine and the SEC doesn't dare, or bother, to tread: the bond and real estate derivative markets where geeks invent impenetrable securities to profit from the misery of lower- and middle-class Americans who can't pay their debts. The smart people who understood what was or might be happening were paralyzed by hope and fear; in any case, they weren't talking.

Michael Lewis creates a fresh, character-driven narrative brimming with indignation and dark humor, a fitting sequel to his #1 bestseller Liar's Poker. Out of a handful of unlikely-really unlikely-heroes, Lewis fashions a story as compelling and unusual as any of his earlier bestsellers, proving yet again that he is the finest and funniest chronicler of our time.

Sponsored products related to this item (What's this?)

Page 1 of 1Start overPage 1 of 1

Feedback

Michael Beschloss

55

Just released

Hardcover
$16.82
Feedback

Ray Dalio

Ray Dalio's Principles For Navigating Big Debt Crises shares his approach to how big debt crises work.

33

Just released

Paperback
$45.00
Feedback

Michael Ovitz

36

Just released

Hardcover
$19.49
Feedback

Tan Liu

There is nothing mysterious or romantic about the stock market. It is just a system that shuffles money between investors.

40

Paperback
$7.99
Feedback

Elizabeth Gilbert

2293

Paperback
$12.00
Feedback

Steve Oliverez

New: How to get rich, travel the world, and live on your own terms (all while you’re still young enough to enjoy it)!

65

Paperback
$12.62
Feedback

Matthew R. Kratter

Ready to learn how the stock market really works? Pick up your copy today.

117

Kindle Edition
$2.99

Editorial Reviews

Review

“No one writes with more narrative panache about money and finance than Mr. Lewis....[he] does a nimble job of using his subjects’ stories to explicate the greed, idiocies and hypocrisies of a system notably lacking in grown-up supervision....Writing in faintly Tom Wolfe-ian prose, Mr. Lewis does a colorful job of introducing the lay reader to the Darwinian world of the bond market.”
- Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

“Superb: Michael Lewis doing what he does best, illuminating the idiocy, madness and greed of modern finance. . . . Lewis achieves what I previously imagined impossible: He makes subprime sexy all over again.”
- Andrew Leonard, Salon.com

“One of the best business books of the past two decades.”
- Malcolm Gladwell, New York Times Book Review

“I read Lewis for the same reasons I watch Tiger Woods. I’ll never play like that. But it’s good to be reminded every now and again what genius looks like.”
- Malcolm Gladwell, New York Times Book Review

About the Author

Michael Lewis is the best-selling author of Liar’s Poker, Moneyball, The Blind Side, The Big Short, and The Undoing Project. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife and three children.

Product details

Paperback: 291 pages
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint edition (February 1, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0393338827
ISBN-13: 978-0393338829
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.3 inches
Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 2,446 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,350 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #5 in Books > Reference > Writing, Research & Publishing Guides > Writing > Journalism & Nonfiction
- #10 in Books > Business & Money > Biography & History > Economic History
- #12 in Books > Business & Money > Economics > Economic Conditions

Would you like to tell us about a lower price?
If you are a seller for this product, would you like to suggest updates through seller support?

Be the first video

Your name here

Sponsored products related to this item (What's this?)

Page 1 of 1Start overPage 1 of 1

Feedback

Michael Beschloss

55

Just released

Hardcover
$16.82
Feedback

Ray Dalio

Ray Dalio's Principles For Navigating Big Debt Crises shares his approach to how big debt crises work.

33

Just released

Paperback
$45.00
Feedback

ClydeBank Finance

85

Paperback
$15.35
Feedback

Ben Reiter

"Astroball is the baseball book of the year, essential for baseball executives at every level, accessible and fun for fans." - Star Tribune

117

Hardcover
$17.44
Feedback

Tan Liu

There is nothing mysterious or romantic about the stock market. It is just a system that shuffles money between investors.

40

Paperback
$7.99
Feedback

Matthew Connor

Learn successful strategies and techniques to build a long-term profitable cryptocurrency portfolio. These strategies are proven and used by experts!

1

Paperback
$13.51
Feedback

Daniel Ganninger

Improve your knowledge with the world's most interesting facts and the facts behind them. Help yourself to a heaping bowl of Knowledge Stew.

43

Kindle Edition
$3.99
Feedback

Cliff Lerner

The Ultimate Management & Leadership Playbook To Massively Grow Your Business. Learn The Genius Tactics I Used To Grow To 100 Million Users.

118

Kindle Edition
$2.99
Feedback

Dana Lee

8

Kindle Edition
$2.99
Feedback

Sam Eder

Discover the Forex trading system that consistently brings in profits every single month with less risk than any other trading strategy out there.

11

Kindle Edition
$2.99

Try the Kindle edition and experience these great reading features:

See Kindle Edition

2,446 customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars

By customer groups & interests

Economics

4.6

Real Estate

4.7

Is this feature helpful?

Thank you for your feedback.

Review this product

Write a customer review

Showing 1-3 of 2,446 reviews

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

"The Big Short:" a fast-paced and understandable account of the 2008 financial crisis.

July 20, 2016

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I usually read the book before I watch the movie, but this time I didn't.

As soon as I finished watching the 2015 movie “The Big Short,” I immediately decided to read Michael Lewis’ book “The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine,” which forms the basis for the film. Lewis, who was himself a Wall Street bond trader in the 1980s and 90s, is the author of several non-fiction books, many of them dealing with the world of finance.

“The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine” isn’t so much “about” the financial crisis as it is about what caused the meltdown in the first place. Lewis tells his story through the actions of four separate investment groups: Scion Capital; managed by Dr. Michael Burry; FrontPoint Partners LLC, led by Steve Eisman; Cornwall Capital, co-managed by James Mai and Charlie Ledley; and Greg Lippmann, a bond trader with Deutsche Bank. These investors, each working independently from each other, correctly foresaw the collapse of the housing markets in the United States in 2007. Nobody else saw it – or wanted to, for that matter.

For years, many of the world’s biggest investment and commercial banks had been investing heavily in high-risk subprime mortgages. This caused housing prices to rise, and a “housing bubble” to form. But soon, variable interest rates on these mortgages would begin to rise sharply, and massive numbers of people with little or no income would begin to default on mortgages they could no longer afford. Our four investors each decided to “sell short” the housing markets by investing in “credit default swaps” – a form of insurance against mortgage defaults. They essentially were betting against the housing markets: when (not if) the housing markets failed, the investors would end up making millions…

“The Big Short” is a very well written book. It’s fast-paced, easy to read, and short (less than 300 pages). Michael Lewis’ story is very much character-driven. His profiles of the main players are surprisingly detailed, brutally honest, and fascinating. Some people who start out looking like villains end up as quite heroic and admirable figures. Others do not fare so well.

One of the things Michael Lewis does best is explain many of the technical aspects of the financial system in a manner that I could easily understand. Although I’m sure “mortgage backed securities,” “credit default swaps,” and “collateral debt obligations” are probably a lot more complicated than even Lewis presents them, I found his explanations simple, straightforward, and very useful. As a result, I gained a better knowledge of the financial crisis.

“The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine” is a very informative and entertaining book. For those looking to understand the basics of the 2008 financial crisis, this is one very good place to start. Highly recommended.

16 people found this helpful

Comment

Greed is not so good.

July 29, 2015

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Clever and intriguing with a real from the street feeling as the writer, Michael Lewis tells the story from the viewpoints of several critical, but lesser known “main players” who saw and actively partook in the Wall Street madness. Lewis spent several years on wall Street- straight outta college and he understands the games played, his earlier book “Liar’s poker” dug into this –covering the 1980’ “Greed is Good” fever. ( I will be reading that book sometime in the future). What I took away from this book is that the reason the Bush and Obama administrations did not punish these big firms and their CEOs more is that (besides the corporate money influence standing in the way), the Wall Street bond “rabbit hole” is so deep that if you pull hard enough on one firm- they would collapse and as their bonds collapse- it would pull down one firm after another as they have all bet against each other’s bonds so heavily, resulting in a colossal financial collapse. What is perplexing is why Washington gave so much of the tax payer’s money to Goldman Sachs and to Citigroup.
One warning I will share is that the language is this book goes beyond “Salty”. It was if the film “Serpico” was filmed in a bank’s conference room. The reader may be offended.

11 people found this helpful

Comment

The book lays waste to the idea that American capitalism

July 4, 2016

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I rarely give a book five stars, but I do so without hesitation in this case. If you want to understand all the complexities of the 2008 economic meltdown, in plain English without arcane statistics, this is the book for you. Above all, Michael Lewis has laid bare the combination of corruption, incompetence, arrogance, and outright criminality at the highest levels of the American financial industry and government that produced this disaster. The book lays waste to the idea that American capitalism, as currently practiced, will produce a better world for us all. Along the way, it reveals the pure fiction behind the central tenets that guide our economic elite, such as:
--The executives that control our major banks and corporations are insightful entrepreneurs with unique skills for creating wealth and new businesses
--There is too much government regulation
--Cutting taxes for the wealthy produces more prosperity for all

Remember: the book destroys these myths, not as an ideological diatribe, but from the perspective of brokers and analysts who, themselves, participated in the system but saw the house of cards that their more powerful (and well paid) colleagues were building. Not only saw it, but bet their careers and economic futures that it would ultimately collapse--and they were right. It's this book's stunning, fact-based revelations of the corruption, incompetence, and greed in our corporate executive suites that makes it an instant classic. It indicts a whole generation of America's corporate and financial leaders.

And remember: these same leaders, or their like-minded clones, are still in place, and already trying to turn back the meager reforms put in place to prevent a repeat of their evil. They repeat ad infinitum the shibboleth that government regulation, not corporate malfeasance, is the source of our economic malaise. They further that Big Lie by using their ill-gotten wealth to control the media and to elect their lackeys to office. They have no shame, no sense of decency. Left unchecked, they will destroy America. As they came close to doing in 2008.

5 people found this helpful

Comment

Set up an Amazon Giveaway

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine

Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more about Amazon Giveaway

This item: The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine

Set up a giveaway

Pages with related products. See and discover other items: accounting theory, c language, writing short stories, off the charts, big books, big history

English United States

Conditions of Use
Privacy Notice
Interest-Based Ads
© 1996-2018, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates