Young, brash, sporting a shiny new MBA, and obscenely overpaid, Brian Cruver epitomized the Enron employee when he first entered the company's Houston office; and from day one he found himself a cog in the wheel of a venal greed machine. For the next nine months, he would witness firsthand the now-infamous corporate tragedy that he relates in these ruthlessly honest, often hilarious, and frequently disturbing pages. Here are the accounting tricks, insider stock trades, grossly lucrative fraudulent partnerships, and death dance to bankruptcy. Equally revealing, though, are Cruver's descriptions of everyday life at Enron: the cocky wheeling and dealing, intraoffice relationships, casual conversations at the shredder, and the insidious group-think that committed Enronians to the propaganda of flawed executives like Ken Lay, Jeffrey Skilling, and Andy Fastow. Out of their wreckage, Cruver has fashioned an arresting and cautionary morality tale for our time. Anatomy of Greed was the basis for the CBS-TV movie The Crooked E: a behind-the-scenes chronicle of the last days in the strange life of one of the world's richest, riskiest, and most corrupt corporations. Eight pages of telling photographs are included.

"I'd say you were a carnival barker, except that wouldn't be fair tocarnival barkers. A carnie will at least tell you up front that he's running a shell game. You, Mr. Lay, were running what purported to be the seventh largest corporation in America."-Senator Peter Fitzgerald (R-IL) to Enron CEO Kenneth Lay, Senate Commerce Science & Transportation's Subcommittee, Hearing on Enron, 2/12/02 The speed of Enron's rise and fall is truly astonishing and perhaps the single most important story of corporate failure in the twenty-first century. In Enron investigative journalist Loren Fox promises readers nothing short of the most compelling and insightful investigation into Enron's meteoric ascent-regarded by Wall Street and the media as the epitome of innovation-and its spectacular fall from grace. In a lively and authoritative manner, Fox discusses how the biggest corporate bankruptcy in American business history happened, why for so long no one (except for an enlightened few) saw it coming, and what its impact will be on financial markets, the U.S. economy, U.S. energy policy, and the public for years to come. With access to many company insiders, Fox's intriguing account of this corporate debacle also provides an overview of the corporate culture and business model that led to Enron's high-flying success and disastrous failure. The story of Enron is one that will reverberate in global financial and energy markets as well as in criminal and civil courts for years to come. Rife with all the elements of a classic thriller-scandal, dishonest accounting, personal greed, questionable campaign contributions, suicide-Enron captures the essence of a company that went too far too fast.

Updated with bonus material, including a new foreword and afterword with new research, this New York Times bestseller is essential reading for a time when mental health is constantly in the news. In this astonishing and startling book, award-winning science and history writer Robert Whitaker investigates a medical mystery: Why has the number of disabled mentally ill in the United States tripled over the past two decades? Interwoven with Whitaker’s groundbreaking analysis of the merits of psychiatric medications are the personal stories of children and adults swept up in this epidemic. As Anatomy of an Epidemic reveals, other societies have begun to alter their use of psychiatric medications and are now reporting much improved outcomes . . . so why can’t such change happen here in the United States? Why have the results from these long-term studies—all of which point to the same startling conclusion—been kept from the public? Our nation has been hit by an epidemic of disabling mental illness, and yet, as Anatomy of an Epidemic reveals, the medical blueprints for curbing that epidemic have already been drawn up. Praise for Anatomy of an Epidemic “The timing of Robert Whitaker’s Anatomy of an Epidemic, a comprehensive and highly readable history of psychiatry in the United States, couldn’t be better.”—Salon “Anatomy of an Epidemic offers some answers, charting controversial ground with mystery-novel pacing.”—TIME “Lucid, pointed and important, Anatomy of an Epidemic should be required reading for anyone considering extended use of psychiatric medicine. Whitaker is at the height of his powers.” —Greg Critser, author of Generation Rx

After the shocking collapse of Enron in fall, 2001 came an equally shocking series of disclosures about how America's seventh-largest company had destroyed itself. There were unethical deals, offshore accounts, and accounting irregularities. There were Wall Street analysts who seemed to have been asleep on the job. There were the lies top executives told so that they could line their own pockets while workers and shareholders lost billions. But after all these disclosures, the question remains: Why? Why did a thriving, innovative company with rock-solid cash flow and reliable earnings suddenly flame out in a maelstrom of corruption, fraud and skulduggery? The answer, Texas business journalist Robert Bryce reveals in this incisive and entertaining book, is that bad business practices begin with human beings. Pipe Dreams traces Enron's astounding transformation from a small regional gas pipeline company into an energy Goliath...and then tracks step-by-step, business decision by business decision, extra-marital affair by extra-marital affair, how, when and why the culture of Enron began to go rotten, and who was responsible. The story of Enron's fall isn't just a story about accounting procedures; it's a story about people. Bryce tells that story with all the personality, passion, humor, and inside dope you'd hope for, and the result is an un-putdownable read in the tradition of Barbarians at the Gate and The Predators' Ball.

A study of aggression from the renowned social psychologist and New York Times–bestselling author of The Art of Loving and Escape from Freedom. Throughout history, humans have shown an incredible talent for destruction as well as creation. Aggression has driven us to great heights and brutal lows. In The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, renowned social psychologist Erich Fromm discusses the differences between forms of aggression typical for animals and two very specific forms of destructiveness that can only be found in human beings: sadism and necrophilic destructiveness. His case studies span zoo animals, necrophiliacs, and the psychobiographies of notorious figures such as Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. Through his broad scholarship, Fromm offers a comprehensive exploration of the human impulse for violence. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Erich Fromm including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the author’s estate.

“They’re still trying to hide the weenie,” thought Sherron Watkins as she read a newspaper clipping about Enron two weeks before Christmas, 2001. . . It quoted [CFO] Jeff McMahon addressing the company’s creditors and cautioning them against a rash judgment. “Don’t assume that there is a smoking gun.” Sherron knew Enron well enough to know that the company was in extreme spin mode… Power Failure is the electrifying behind-the-scenes story of the collapse of Enron, the high-flying gas and energy company touted as the poster child of the New Economy that, in its hubris, had aspired to be “The World’s Leading Company,” and had briefly been the seventh largest corporation in America. Written by prizewinning journalist Mimi Swartz, and substantially based on the never-before-published revelations of former Enron vice-president Sherron Watkins, as well as hundreds of other interviews, Power Failure shows the human face beyond the greed, arrogance, and raw ambition that fueled the company’s meteoric rise in the late 1990s. At the dawn of the new century, Ken Lay’s and Jeff Skilling's faces graced the covers of business magazines, and Enron’s money oiled the political machinery behind George W. Bush’s election campaign. But as Wall Street analysts sang Enron’s praises, and its stock spiraled dizzyingly into the stratosphere, the company’s leaders were madly scrambling to manufacture illusory profits, hide its ballooning debt, and bully Wall Street into buying its fictional accounting and off-balance-sheet investment vehicles. The story of Enron’s fall is a morality tale writ large, performed on a stage with an unforgettable array of props and side plots, from parking lots overflowing with Boxsters and BMWs to hot-house office affairs and executive tantrums. Among the cast of characters Mimi Swartz and Sherron Watkins observe with shrewd Texas eyes and an insider’s perspective are: CEO Ken Lay, Enron’s “outside face,” who was more interested in playing diplomat and paving the road to a political career than in managing Enron’s high-testosterone, anything-goes culture; Jeff Skilling, the mastermind behind Enron’s mercenary trading culture, who transformed himself from a nerdy executive into the personification of millennial cool; Rebecca Mark, the savvy and seductive head of Enron’s international division, who was Skilling’s sole rival to take over the company; and Andy Fastow, whose childish pranks early in his career gave way to something far more destructive. Desperate to be a player in Enron’s deal-making, trader-oriented culture, Fastow transformed Enron’s finance department into a “profit center,” creating a honeycomb of financial entities to bolster Enron’s “profits,” while diverting tens of millions of dollars into his own pockets An unprecedented chronicle of Enron’s shocking collapse, Power Failure should take its place alongside the classics of previous decades – Barbarians at the Gate and Liar’s Poker – as one of the cautionary tales of our times.

From head to toe to breast to behind, Charles Hodgson's Carnal Knowledge is a delightfully intoxicating tour of the words we use to describe our bodies. Did you know: -eye is one of the oldest written words in the English language? -callipygian means "having beautiful buttocks"? -gam, a slang word for "leg," comes from the French word jambe? A treat for anyone who gets a kick out of words, Carnal Knowledge is also the perfect gift for anyone interested in the human body and the many (many, many) ways it's been described.