On a quiet July morning, one of the world's most powerful and prestigious investment banking partnerships was launched on the path to ruin-not by the economy, not by an act of God, but by a self-inflicted wound.

The firm was Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb, a revered Wall Street institution with roots that stretched back to the Civil War. And what happened that July morning in 1983 would not only spell the end of a banking firm but would come to symbolize the recklessly high-flying Wall Street of the 1980s.

Through hundreds of hours of interviews, through access to private company records, through the confidence of board members, partners, associates and employees, Ken Auletta created a prophetic spellbinder which resonates especially today. It is a story of greed, ego and error; a tale of primal combat between two men and between two irrevocably different and hostile worlds; a superb example of investigative journalism that rivals any best-selling novel for sheer surprise, drama and excitement.

Ken Auletta is the communications columnist for The New Yorker. He is the author of seven books, including the national bestseller Three Blind Mice, and, most recently, The Highwaymen: Warriors of the Information Superhighway.