A very good business history book with an excellent description of leveraged buyouts. I think, though, that the book missed a major point (or left it purely to inference) and that is that barbarians were really inside the gate. Taking a line from Adam Smith in describing the management of joint stock companies, negligence and profusion prevailed. The book was very well researched, and gave a blow-by-blow description of the destruction of shareholder's values starting from the poor management of the public corporation through its taking to a private holding.