Candide is the story of a gentle man who, though pummeled and slapped in every direction by fate, clings desperately to the belief that he lives in "the best of all possible worlds." On the surface a witty, bantering tale, this eighteenth-century classic is actually a savage, satiric thrust at the philosophical optimism that proclaims that all disaster and human suffering is part of a benevolen…
Roger Lowenstein's The End of Wall Street unfurls a gripping chronicle of the 2008 financial collapse, drawing on 180 interviews with top government officials and Wall Street CEOs. Lowenstein looks to the roots of the crisis to reveal how America succumbed to the siren song of easy debt and speculative mortgages. Combining deep analysis with sizzling narrative, The End of Wall Street charts the…