Presents a moment-by-moment account of the recent financial collapse that documents state efforts to prevent an economic disaster, offering insight into the pivotal consequences of decisions made throughout the past decade. This book is a brilliantly reported true-life thriller that goes behind the scenes of the financial crisis on Wall Street and in Washington. In one of the most gripping financial narratives in decades, Andrew Ross Sorkin -- a New York Times columnist and one of the country's most respected financial reporters -- delivers the first definitive blow- by-blow account of the epochal economic crisis that brought the world to the brink. Through unprecedented access to the players involved, he re-creates all the drama and turmoil of these turbulent days, revealing never-before-disclosed details and recounting how, motivated as often by ego and greed as by fear and self-preservation, the most powerful men and women in finance and politics decided the fate of the world's economy. - Publisher.