Simon & Schuster Audio will release (December 2008) Michael Lewis' powerful collection of reportage on the current financial crisis, and the mistakes leading up to the current economic state with "Panic!: The Story of Modern Financial Insanity." The audio features an exclusive interview with bestselling author Michael Lewis {recorded on November 18th, 2008} in which he brings up-to-date perspective to the ongoing economic collapse. Lewis selected several pieces of brilliant journalism to illuminate the most violent and costly upheavals in recent financial history: the Crash of '87, the Russian Default (and the subsequent collapse of Long Term Capital Management), the Asian Currency Crisis of 1999, the Internet Bubble, and the current Sub-Prime Mortgage Disaster. Among the selections are several pieces by Lewis himself, as well as contributions from Nobel Prize-winner Paul Krugman, James Surowiecki, and others writing in Fortune, The New Yorker, and The New York Times.
Some of the pieces take an in-depth look at factors leading up to the crash and show what people thought was happening at the time. Others analyze what actually happened. "Panic!" calls out the lessons that should have been learned along the way, but for the most part were ignored and led to the current financial crisis.
