Conspiracy of Fools | Kurt Eichenwald

Conspiracy of Fools: A True Story | Kurt Eichenwald

How did one of America's most powerful energy empires implode from within through staggering arrogance and deception? Kurt Eichenwald investigates.

About the Book:

From an award-winning New York Times reporter comes the full, mind-boggling true story of the lies, crimes, and ineptitude behind the Enron scandal that imperiled a presidency, destroyed a marketplace, and changed Washington and Wall Street forever.

It was the corporate collapse that appeared to come out of nowhere.

In late 2001, the Enron Corporation—a darling of the financial world, a company whose executives were friends of presidents and the powerful—imploded virtually overnight, leaving vast wreckage in its wake and sparking a criminal investigation that would last for years.

Kurt Eichenwald transforms the unbelievable story of the Enron scandal into a rip-roaring narrative of epic proportions, taking readers behind every closed door—from the Oval Office to the executive suites, from the highest reaches of the Justice Department to the homes and bedrooms of the top officers.

It is a tale of global reach—from Houston to Washington, from Bombay to London, from Munich to Sao Paolo—laying out the unbelievable scenes that twisted together to create this shocking true story.

Eichenwald reveals never-disclosed details of a story that features a cast including George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Paul O’Neill, Harvey Pitt, Colin Powell, Gray Davis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Alan Greenspan, Ken Lay, Andy Fastow, Jeff Skilling, Bill Clinton, Rupert Murdoch and Sumner Redstone.

With its you-are-there glimpse into the secretive worlds of corporate power, Conspiracy of Fools is an all-true financial and political thriller of cinematic proportions.

Frequently Asked Questions About Conspiracy of Fools:

• Q: Is this an academic textbook on financial regulations or a narrative story?
  A: This is a highly dramatic, cinematic true-crime narrative. Written with the pacing of a high-stakes political thriller, it takes readers directly into corporate boardrooms, private hotel suites, and confidential offices to show exactly how the Enron scandal unfolded through chronological, day-by-day scenes.
• Q: How does this book compare to other famous accounts of the Enron scandal?
  A: While other books focus heavily on public data and corporate overviews, Conspiracy of Fools is uniquely celebrated for its granular, microscopic access. Kurt Eichenwald pieces together the internal corporate dialogue, recreating thousands of private conversations, secret phone calls, and high-pressure text communications to reveal the intense human panic behind the collapse.
• Q: Who is the author, and what background authority does he bring to this case?
  A: The book is written by Kurt Eichenwald, a legendary investigative journalist and long-time senior writer for The New York Times. A two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Eichenwald spent years tracking white-collar corruption, giving him massive expert authority when analyzing complex financial deception and regulatory systems.
• Q: What specific corporate psychology or theme is explored in the title?
  A: The narrative reveals that Enron's downfall wasn't just a masterfully calculated criminal conspiracy by a group of geniuses. Instead, Eichenwald illustrates a "conspiracy of fools"—a chaotic environment of structural incompetence, staggering executive hubris, personal greed, and catastrophic blindly-ignored warnings where leadership lost absolute control of their own fraudulent creations.
• Q: Does the text require a background in accounting to understand the plot?
  A: Not at all. Eichenwald masterfully translates dense, complex Wall Street mechanisms into clear, accessible prose. He explains convoluted schemes like off-the-books shell companies, mark-to-market accounting tricks, and predatory energy manipulation so that any everyday non-fiction reader can follow the gripping corporate collapse.

About the Author:

Kurt Eichenwald: American Journalist

Kurt Eichenwald has written for the New York Times for more than seventeen years. A two-time winner of the George Polk Award for Excellence in Journalism and a finalist for the 2000 Pulitzer Prize, he has been selected repeatedly for the TJFR Business News Reporter as one of the nation’s most influential financial journalists.

His last book, the highly praised Conspiracy of Fools, was a New York Times bestseller. His book The Informant is currently in development as a major motion picture.

Eichenwald lives in Dallas with his wife and three children.

Bibliographic Data:

• Full Title: Conspiracy of Fools: A True Story
• Author(s): Kurt Eichenwald
• Publisher & Imprint: Broadway Books (An imprint of Knopf Doubleday / Penguin Random House)
• Publication Date: December 27, 2005 (Original hardcover published March 2005)
• Binding Format: Trade Paperback
• Condition: Pre-Owned / Very Good
• Edition: Reprint / Trade Paperback Edition
• Print Length: 768 Pages
• Language: English
• ISBN-13: 9780767911795
• ISBN-10: 0767911794
• Library of Congress (LCCN): 2004058297
• Primary Genre (BISAC): TRUE CRIME / White Collar Crime
• Sub-Genres (BISAC): BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Corporate Finance / General; BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Business Ethics; HISTORY / United States / 21st Century
• Dimensions: 5.18 x 1.54 x 7.96 inches
• Weight: 20.8 oz (approx. 1.30 lbs)

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