Average customer rating:
- Unbelievable In This Day and Age
- Real Life Horror
- No good ending here
- Lack of remorse in Oklahoma
- Had it been a work of fiction I would have given it 1 star...
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The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town
John Grisham
Manufacturer: Doubleday
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 Legal System
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Penology
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Murder & Mayhem
| True Accounts
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ASIN: 0385517238
Release Date: 2006-10-10 |
Amazon.com
John Grisham tackles nonfiction for the first time with The Innocent Man, a true tale about murder and injustice in a small town (that reads like one of his own bestselling novels). The Innocent Man chronicles the story of Ron Williamson, how he was arrested and charged with a crime he did not commit, how his case was (mis)handled and how an innocent man was sent to death row. Grisham's first work of nonfiction is shocking, disturbing, and enthralling--a must read for fiction and nonfiction fans. We had the opportunity to talk with John Grisham about the case and the book, read his responses below. --Daphne Durham
20 Second Interview: A Few Words with John Grisham
Q: After almost two decades of writing fiction, what compelled you to write non-fiction, particularly investigative journalism?
A: I was never tempted to write non-fiction, primarily because it's too much work. However, obviously, I love a good legal thriller, and the story of Ron Williamson has all the elements of a great suspenseful story.
Q: Why this case?
A: Ron Williamson and I are about the same age and we both grew up in small towns in the south. We both dreamed of being major league baseball players. Ron had the talent, I did not. When he left a small town in 1971 to pursue his dreams of major league glory, many thought he would be the next Mickey Mantle, the next great one from the state of Oklahoma. The story of Ron ending up on Death Row and almost being executed for a murder he did not commit was simply too good to pass up.
Q: How did you go about your research?
A: I started with his family. Ron is survived by two sisters who took care of him for most of his life. They gave me complete access to the family records, photographs, Ron's mental health records, and so on. There was also a truckload of trial transcripts, depositions, appeals, etc., that took about 18 months to organize and review. Many of the characters in the story are still alive and I traveled to Oklahoma countless times to interview them.
Q: Did your training as a lawyer help you?
A: Very much so. It enabled me to understand the legal issues involved in Ron's trial and his appeals. It also allowed me, as it always does, to be able to speak the language with lawyers and judges.
Q: Throughout your book you mention, The Dreams of Ada: A True Story of Murder, Obsession, and a Small Town. How did you come across that book, and how did it impact your writing The Innocent Man?
A: Several of the people in Oklahoma I met mentioned The Dreams of Ada to me, and I read it early on in the process. It is an astounding book, a great example of true crime writing, and I relied upon it heavily during my research. Robert Mayer, the author, was completely cooperative, and kept meticulous notes from his research 20 years earlier. Many of the same characters are involved in his story and mine.
Q: You take on some pretty controversial and heated topics in your book--the death penalty, prisoner's rights, DNA analysis, police conduct, and more--were any of your own beliefs challenged by this story and its outcome?
A: None were challenged, but my eyes were open to the world of wrongful convictions. Even as a former criminal defense attorney, I had never spent much time worrying about wrongful convictions. But, unfortunately, they happen all the time in this country, and with increasing frequency.
Q: So many of the key players in this case are either still in office or practicing attorneys. Many family members and friends still live in the same small town. How do you think The Innocent Man will impact this community and other small rural towns as they struggle with the realities of the justice system?
A: Exonerations seem to be happening weekly. And with each one of them, the question is asked--how can an innocent man be convicted and kept in prison for 20 years? My book is the story of only one man, but it is a good example of how things can go terribly wrong with our judicial system. I have no idea how the book will be received in the small town of Ada, Oklahoma, or any other town.
Q: What do you hope your readers will take away from The Innocent Man?
A: A better understanding of how innocent people can be convicted, and a greater concern for the need to reimburse and rehabilitate innocent men after they have been released.
Book Description
John Grisham’s first work of nonfiction, an exploration of small town justice gone terribly awry, is his most extraordinary legal thriller yet.
In the major league draft of 1971, the first player chosen from the State of Oklahoma was Ron Williamson. When he signed with the Oakland A’s, he said goodbye to his hometown of Ada and left to pursue his dreams of big league glory.
Six years later he was back, his dreams broken by a bad arm and bad habits—drinking, drugs, and women. He began to show signs of mental illness. Unable to keep a job, he moved in with his mother and slept twenty hours a day on her sofa.
In 1982, a 21-year-old cocktail waitress in Ada named Debra Sue Carter was raped and murdered, and for five years the police could not solve the crime. For reasons that were never clear, they suspected Ron Williamson and his friend Dennis Fritz. The two were finally arrested in 1987 and charged with capital murder.
With no physical evidence, the prosecution’s case was built on junk science and the testimony of jailhouse snitches and convicts. Dennis Fritz was found guilty and given a life sentence. Ron Williamson was sent to death row.
If you believe that in America you are innocent until proven guilty, this book will shock you. If you believe in the death penalty, this book will disturb you. If you believe the criminal justice system is fair, this book will infuriate you.
Customer Reviews:
Unbelievable In This Day and Age.......2007-09-30
I read this book thinking it had to be another Grisham work of fiction because if the story were true, America is in trouble.
This story is riveting, fast-paced and shows how truly horrible our justice system can be for those who can't afford a "Johnny Cochran".
I couldn't put this book down. The more you read the more you can't believe it really happened. Thank goodness for the pictures of the people in this story, it really brought home the fact that it's a true story.
Excellent job by Mr. Grisham.
Real Life Horror.......2007-09-29
"The Innocent Man" is a chronicle of Ron Williamson (former minor league baseball star), his life and ordeal as he was wrongly accused of murder and sentenced to death row as a result. He was forced to suffer this horror for 11 years until finally the system began to work for him, but only through the diligence and persistence of attorneys assigned to him years later, Mark Barrett and Barry Scheck, his loving mother and persistent sisters, in particular, his sister Annette. The cruelties and disrespect by the officers and District Attorney Bill Peterson that were inflected on him were horrifying. The shabby police work and "junk science," as well as the district attorney's expert witnesses (a majority of them picked from men and women serving time for horrendous crimes themselves) and brought to the stand to testify against Ron, was not only incomprehensible in itself but the fact that the Judge allowed their testimony to stand and control a man's life sentence is abominable. Ron's hometown of Ada, Oklahoma completely turned on him and he was proven guilty without a shred of hard evidence as was his friend, a respected 7th grade Science teacher, Dennis Fritz, merely by association. The book goes on to tell Ron's sad story as only it can be told by such an esteemed author/attorney as John Grisham. I would highly recommend everyone read this true story; it is a real eye opener as to how our justice system can go astray with the wrong people serving in our trusted government positions.
No good ending here.......2007-09-27
I seldom read Grisham but found his first non-fiction work hard to put down. The story of Ron Williamson has no happy ending. Not for Ron nor the young woman who was so brutually murdered.
Grisham does an excellent job of drawing us into the story. If you have never experienced justice (or lack of) in a small town you need to read this book. Had Ron lived in New York City or even Dallas he may have gone unnoticed wandering the streets and babbling like a mad man. But not in Ada, OK.
Lack of remorse in Oklahoma.......2007-09-26
This story had a tremendous impact on me. I support the death penalty but was abhorred to see how flippantly it was applied in Ada Oklahoma. Read this book first and then log onto District Attorney Peterson's web site to read his defense of his actions that were the subject of the book. The first thing he displays on his website is the American flag. Then he has a lengthy and tedious defense of all the minor points in Grisham's novel. He provides statistics on the probability of innocent people being convicted of felonies as if this excuses him for almost sending an innocent person to his death. Peterson tries to blow off Grisham as an anti-death penalty advocate. I truly fear for the soul of Mr. Peterson and the good people of Ada Oklahoma - a bit of remorse and repentance for what they almost did to an innocent man would help them when they meet their Maker. Hiding behind the American flag might help now but certainly not later!
Had it been a work of fiction I would have given it 1 star..........2007-09-18
... but it's not. It only looks like fiction in bad taste. Instead, this truly happened as described.
I'm not summarizing the story as the editorial reviews and most reviewers before me are quite descriptive.
May I just say that I think that every judicial system has its share of faults and flaws, but what's revealed in this book is simply astonishing and unbelievable from beginning to end. I can only hope that it rattles a few consciences whilst increasing awareness to prevent disastrous consequences for those involved.
As it always happens when I read J. Grisham's books, I've appreciated and enjoyed the clear and well structured narrative, even more so on this occasion. Being a real-life story, I'm sure it must have been quite a task to extrapolate all the relevant facts from all the interviews and paperwork generated by this case during the years, in order to present them clearly to the readers.
Unless you already know the epilogue, try not to peek at the photographs published right in the middle of the book. Some are quite revealing for the yet-to-be-read rest of the story. They don't actually "spoil everything" -in fact, whatever unfolded after turning those pages kept me on the alert and as incredulous as ever- but I still think it would have been preferable to print them at the very end of the book.
A part from that, "The Innocent Man" is highly recommendable.
Book Description
Deal Terms is the first ever in-depth look at valuations, preferred stock, stock options and other variables that affect deal structure, written by Alex Wilmerding (a venture capitalist at Boston Capital Ventures and best selling author of Term Sheets & Valuations). Written from a venture capital perspective, however applicable for all types of financings, Deal Terms includes actual term sheets, valuation methodology and analysis, assessment of stock option programs and their impact on valuations and capital structures and other real world documents used by leading venture capitalists and lawyers analyzed from multiple perspectives. A must have book for any executive, entrepreneur, or financial professional, this timeless classic is an unprecedented resource that will help you avoid costly mistakes, understand various structures and terms, and understand wording and language from other deal sheets to help you get deals done.
According to Graham Anderson, General Partner at Euclid SR Partners, "Deal Terms provides critical, in-depth, first-hand perspective on the crucial terms and factors which influence financing decisions." Clifford Schorer, Entrepreneur in Residence, Columbia Business School remarks, "Deal Terms is an indispensable reference for entrepreneurs and finance professionals." And Andrew McKee, General Partner at Webster Capital notes, "Deal Terms is a really important resource."
Download Description
Deal Terms is the first ever in-depth look at valuations, preferred stock, stock options and other variables that affect deal structure, written by Alex Wilmerding (a venture capitalist at Boston Capital Ventures and best selling author of Term Sheets & Valuations). Written from a venture capital perspective, however applicable for all types of financings, Deal Terms includes actual term sheets, valuation methodology and analysis, assessment of stock option programs and their impact on valuations and capital structures and other real world documents used by leading venture capitalists and lawyers analyzed from multiple perspectives. A must have book for any executive, entrepreneur, or financial professional, this timeless classic is an unprecedented resource that will help you avoid costly mistakes, understand various structures and terms, and understand wording and language from other deal sheets to help you get deals done.
Customer Reviews:
A Quick Guide to Venture Capital Thinking.......2006-06-21
This book, one claimed by the publisher to fall into the need-to-read category rather than the nice-to-read, is aimed at giving the businessman the information he needs to know to be able to hold an intelligent conversation with a venture capitalist.
It's a pretty quick and easy read, but the businessman who has gotten his business up to the stage where outside money is needed is probably not a financial type but an engineer, or scientist or perhaps just plain businessman. This book, written from the venture capitalist standpoint, will explain to him such things as how to value a company, verious types of stock, dilution of the ownership, in short, all of the things that will need to be understood when a big time financial deal goes down.
It's not an in depth book, each of these subjects can and has several books describing them 'in depth.' Instead it is a small book that gives you what you need to know quickly.
Great Book - But Even Better is Author DVD Called Negotiating Term Sheets & Valuations in VC Deals.......2006-05-17
This author definitely knows his stuff - but even better is author's new product called Negotiating Term Sheets and Valuations in Venture Capital Deals (ISBN 1597010987). It is a 100 minute DVD that has a lot of different material in it that is critical for doing venture capital deals. It also covers specific negotiation strategies and roles and motivations for each key deal participant - which is not covered in this book or the authors other book (Term Sheets & Valuations).
Very Disappointed.......2006-05-15
After enjoying his first book, Term Sheets and Valuations, I was looking forward to this one. I regret to say that I found it a big waste of time and a bigger waste of money.
It appears as if the marketing of the book by the pblisher sought to take advantage of his first book by raising the price by 500%, giving the impression that this book was better or more comprehensive. However, nothing could be further from the truth.
Solid reference for entrepreneurs.......2005-12-29
'Deal Terms' is a solid reference for entrepreneurs with 'need-to-read' (as opposed to 'nice-to-read') information regarding venture financing deals. I find Wilmerding's interviews with various relevant players (e.g. legal counsellor, venture capitalist, entrepreneur) to be a good differentiator of the book; the quick analysis of actual term sheet is also pragmatic. The 'Valuation' section is relatively generic & is the weaker part of the book.
Helpful, practical, and brilliant!.......2004-05-07
I recently finished your book "Deal Terms" and found it extremely
helpful as we are looking into our first round of financing.
This book showed me numerous issues that I would have definitely overlooked or simply not thought of.
Thanks for writing Deal Terms. Definitely an invaluable
reference for anyone in business!
Book Description
Make Human Resources work for you. STRATEGIC HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT shows you how through its unique system of concept integration. Most Human Resources textbooks give you the theories without showing you the connections to real life. This textbook lets you see both sides of Human Resources: the theory and the application. That way, you'll not only get a great grade in class, you'll be on your way to success after college as well.
Customer Reviews:
Strategic Human Resource Management.......2006-11-04
The book covered a lot of ground. I believe it offered a lot of insight into the world of human resources, primarily, the challenges faced by HR today. Some highlights were the concept of valuing human assets, the implications of globalization, federal regulations, the importance of well-designed and applicable feedback systems, employee separation and compensation. Overall, it was a fairly easy read. I would recommend this book to professors, students, and entrepreneurs.
Book Description
Winner of the prestigious Paul A. Samuelson Award for scholarly writing on lifelong financial security, John Cochrane's Asset Pricing now appears in a revised edition that unifies and brings the science of asset pricing up to date for advanced students and professionals. Cochrane traces the pricing of all assets back to a single idea--price equals expected discounted payoff--that captures the macro-economic risks underlying each security's value. By using a single, stochastic discount factor rather than a separate set of tricks for each asset class, Cochrane builds a unified account of modern asset pricing. He presents applications to stocks, bonds, and options. Each model--consumption based, CAPM, multifactor, term structure, and option pricing--is derived as a different specification of the discounted factor.
The discount factor framework also leads to a state-space geometry for mean-variance frontiers and asset pricing models. It puts payoffs in different states of nature on the axes rather than mean and variance of return, leading to a new and conveniently linear geometrical representation of asset pricing ideas.
Cochrane approaches empirical work with the Generalized Method of Moments, which studies sample average prices and discounted payoffs to determine whether price does equal expected discounted payoff. He translates between the discount factor, GMM, and state-space language and the beta, mean-variance, and regression language common in empirical work and earlier theory.
The book also includes a review of recent empirical work on return predictability, value and other puzzles in the cross section, and equity premium puzzles and their resolution. Written to be a summary for academics and professionals as well as a textbook, this book condenses and advances recent scholarship in financial economics.
Customer Reviews:
I wanted to love this book.......2007-07-10
It's probably true that the first book you study about a subject inevitably determines your approach to it afterwards. My first book on asset pricing was Duffie's Dynamic Asset Pricing Theory (2nd ed), and it has perhaps forever biased my judgment. Given this caveat, I wanted to like this book. For econometricians, the stochastic discount approach is increasingly important, and Cochrane's articles are engaging and well written. But, no matter what the blurbs on the back cover of the book say, or what some Amazon reviewers claim, this is a flawed book. It's true that "the hurdles of asset pricing are really conceptual rather than mathematical" (last sentence in the book preface), but this is no excuse for being sloppy, and sloppiness in this book abounds. Assumptions are not clear; theorems are imprecisely stated. Continuous-time formulations pop up without explanation of the variables or of the motivation behind them. Expected-utility derivations are the main tool used by the author, but the connection between no-arbitrage, utility maximization and equilibrium are not clear, and one is led to think that the stochastic discount is unique to this line of reasoning. On the positive side, there are many interesting results and many intuitive explanations. My recommendation: i) read Duffie or Pliska first; ii) take the plunge and download Hansen & Richard's 1987 Econometrica paper (very dense); iii) read Cochrane, but reobtain all the results independently from what you have learned in in i) and ii).
The best.......2007-05-13
Upon recommendation by a friend of the author, I ordered this book through amazon. I read the entire book from cover to cover in a month. I am onto my second pass through the book.
Cochrane organizes pricing theories from CAPM to APT to derivative pricing, all of which I have learned through disparate sources, around a central theme: consumption based pricing theory. Then he goes on explaining the equivalence among these pricing theories, and indicate situations where these theories may best be used.
The author balances the theory with equal emphasis on empirical studies, from estimation methods to common pricing models, especially the Fama-French model. He also shares with us intuitive discussions of value factors, forecasting power of dividend/price ratios and the puzzling momentum factors.
What is especailly good about this book, I found, at least for myself, is how the author manages a casual style without losing rigor and focus. The author in 500+ pages review as well as explore vast amount of financial literature and present it to us in a clear and unified fashion. Another aspect I particularly like is that the author probably has students or people without finance ph.d.s in mind when he explains common but potentially confusing terminologies used in different segments of academic research.
Cochrane sketches out proofs for most of theorems and corollaries. Perhaps it is not the purpose of this book, and should not be required of it as such, that detail proofs be provided. Those can be found in references listed at the end of the book.
Overall I highly recommend this book to people who are interested in asset pricing theories as well as practice. Minimal advanced mathematics is sufficient, such as calculus and linear algebra.
Amazingly intuitive approach to write a text book.......2007-02-11
I agree with most reviewers who rate this book highly. In my opinion, the most outstanding quality of this book is the author's ability to make abstract materials very simple and intuitive without sacrificing the essential ideas of the subjects. The book is a perfect example of a good text book which is not intended to be written as a reference, although it easily has all the merits of being a good reference. (That said, to understand this book, readers need to have good mathematics and economics background to enjoy it.) I wish other books meant to be textbooks had this rare quality.
Very good.......2007-01-19
I took a Finance Ph.D. - level Asset Pricing course that used this book along with other sources and I'm quite happy with it. In particular, I enjoyed Ch 21 "Equity Premium puzzle and Consumption-Based Models". Some Matlab code for Campbell-Cochrane model is still available on my website (click on my name above).
My Favorite Asset Pricing Book.......2007-01-18
I have read most PhD-level textbooks on finance and Cochrane's is my favorite. Cochrane gives you the intuition using graphs as well as mathematical proofs for most of the results. The book is oriented toward training financial economists rather than financial mathematicians. If you are a financial economist and need to buy ONE book on asset pricing theory, buy Cochrane (the REVISED edition). If you are a financial mathematician and need to buy ONE book on asset pricing theory, buy Duffie. If you are smarter than the two guys I am talking about who want to buy ONE book only, then buy both! They are both helpful.
Book Description
Principles of Finance with Excel is the first textbook that comprehensively integrates Excel into the teaching and practice of finance. This book provides exceptional resources to the instructor and student, combining classroom-tested pedagogy with the full potential of Excel's powerful functions. In today's business world, computation is done almost wholly in Excel. Excel's ability to combine graphics with computation and perform complex sensitivity analysis with ease provides potent insights into financial problems. Despite this, most finance texts rely heavily on hand-held calculators and ignore Excel. As a result, many students find that after they enter the professional environment, they have to relearn both finance and Excel. Principles of Finance with Excel is ideal for undergraduate courses in introductory finance or as a reference for finance professionals. A Free In-Text CD for students contains electronic versions of all spreadsheets in the book. A Companion Website -- http://www.oup.com/us/benninga -- contains lecture notes, PowerPoint Slides, and a Test Bank for instructors.
Customer Reviews:
Incredible book highly recommended to everyone.......2007-10-08
The great point of this book is that it explains theory in very close relation to practice. Use of excel makes it even more practical tool which one can use.
The book is self sufficient and the material is presented in a very easy to understand way even for a new person to finance. I use it for self study and feel that there is no book which would TEACH YOU better than this.
There are, however, some misprints and minor non concurrences between the text and answers to exercises in the book and files in excel. But they are minor and in no way prevent from understanding the basic principles and concepts.
This book is highly recommended.
Everyone should have one.......2007-07-19
I think that every businessman or student of business, finance should get it, I bought this one and the book of financial modeling both here in amazon, this is something highly recomendly
Stellar.......2007-07-05
This order and all orders that I process through Amazon/Borders online always come in a timely manner. I have spent over $500 within the last three months and I am 100% satisfied with the service and quality of books that I receive.
Thanks,
J.D.
Good material, but full of errors........2007-05-28
This book is clear, concise, easy to follow, and solidly covers the fundamentals of finance. The excel portions are equally impressive, and the practical applications are clear. However, the examples and especially the solutions on the enclosed CD are riddled with mistakes and transcription errors. Frankly, I get the impression that the examples on the CD were put together by on of Benninga's less than stellar students. Three or four mistakes per exercise problem is what I found to be typical. Most of the errors are rather obvious, like saying months when they mean years, the examples in the book having different values than the corresponding problem on the CD, etc., but many of the problems are incorrectly solved as well. In at least one instance, they show the solution to an earlier problem instead of the problem they are supposed to be solving. There is also occasional bad grammer: "Note that the inflation series is not a trivial to put together"
All in all, the text isn't bad, and I've learned a lot from working through it. I just wish more time had been spent checking his work.
Nice book.......2007-05-15
It is a very useful book.I advise every financial practitioner to own this book and keep it as a refrence.
Amazon.com
On September 23, 1998, the boardroom of the New York Fed was a tense place. Around the table sat the heads of every major Wall Street bank, the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, and representatives from numerous European banks, each of whom had been summoned to discuss a highly unusual prospect: rescuing what had, until then, been the envy of them all, the extraordinarily successful bond-trading firm of Long-Term Capital Management. Roger Lowenstein's When Genius Failed is the gripping story of the Fed's unprecedented move, the incredible heights reached by LTCM, and the firm's eventual dramatic demise.
Lowenstein, a financial journalist and author of Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist, examines the personalities, academic experts, and professional relationships at LTCM and uncovers the layers of numbers behind its roller-coaster ride with the precision of a skilled surgeon. The fund's enigmatic founder, John Meriwether, spent almost 20 years at Salomon Brothers, where he formed its renowned Arbitrage Group by hiring academia's top financial economists. Though Meriwether left Salomon under a cloud of the SEC's wrath, he leapt into his next venture with ease and enticed most of his former Salomon hires--and eventually even David Mullins, the former vice chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve--to join him in starting a hedge fund that would beat all hedge funds.
LTCM began trading in 1994, after completing a road show that, despite the Ph.D.-touting partners' lack of social skills and their disdainful condescension of potential investors who couldn't rise to their intellectual level, netted a whopping $1.25 billion. The fund would seek to earn a tiny spread on thousands of trades, "as if it were vacuuming nickels that others couldn't see," in the words of one of its Nobel laureate partners, Myron Scholes. And nickels it found. In its first two years, LTCM earned $1.6 billion, profits that exceeded 40 percent even after the partners' hefty cuts. By the spring of 1996, it was holding $140 billion in assets. But the end was soon in sight, and Lowenstein's detailed account of each successively worse month of 1998, culminating in a disastrous August and the partners' subsequent panicked moves, is riveting.
The arbitrageur's world is a complicated one, and it might have served Lowenstein well to slow down and explain in greater detail the complex terms of the more exotic species of investment flora that cram the book's pages. However, much of the intrigue of the Long-Term story lies in its dizzying pace (not to mention the dizzying amounts of money won and lost in the fund's short lifespan). Lowenstein's smooth, conversational but equally urgent tone carries it along well. The book is a compelling read for those who've always wondered what lay behind the Fed's controversial involvement with the LTCM hedge-fund debacle. --S. Ketchum
Book Description
John Meriwether, a famously successful Wall Street trader, spent the 1980s as a partner at Salomon Brothers, establishing the best--and the brainiest--bond arbitrage group in the world. A mysterious and shy midwesterner, he knitted together a group of Ph.D.-certified arbitrageurs who rewarded him with filial devotion and fabulous profits. Then, in 1991, in the wake of a scandal involving one of his traders, Meriwether abruptly resigned. For two years, his fiercely loyal team--convinced that the chief had been unfairly victimized--plotted their boss's return. Then, in 1993, Meriwether made a historic offer. He gathered together his former disciples and a handful of supereconomists from academia and proposed that they become partners in a new hedge fund different from any Wall Street had ever seen. And so Long-Term Capital Management was born.
In a decade that had seen the longest and most rewarding bull market in history, hedge funds were the ne plus ultra of investments: discreet, private clubs limited to those rich enough to pony up millions. They promised that the investors' money would be placed in a variety of trades simultaneously--a "hedging" strategy designed to minimize the possibility of loss. At Long-Term, Meriwether & Co. truly believed that their finely tuned computer models had tamed the genie of risk, and would allow them to bet on the future with near mathematical certainty. And thanks to their cast--which included a pair of future Nobel Prize winners--investors believed them.
From the moment Long-Term opened their offices in posh Greenwich, Connecticut, miles from the pandemonium of Wall Street, it was clear that this would be a hedge fund apart from all others. Though they viewed the big Wall Street investment banks with disdain, so great was Long-Term's aura that these very banks lined up to provide the firm with financing, and on the very sweetest of terms. So self-certain were Long-Term's traders that they borrowed with little concern about the leverage. At first, Long-Term's models stayed on script, and this new gold standard in hedge funds boasted such incredible returns that private investors and even central banks clamored to invest more money. It seemed the geniuses in Greenwich couldn't lose.
Four years later, when a default in Russia set off a global storm that Long-Term's models hadn't anticipated, its supposedly safe portfolios imploded. In five weeks, the professors went from mega-rich geniuses to discredited failures. With the firm about to go under, its staggering $100 billion balance sheet threatened to drag down markets around the world. At the eleventh hour, fearing that the financial system of the world was in peril, the Federal Reserve Bank hastily summoned Wall Street's leading banks to underwrite a bailout.
Roger Lowenstein, the bestselling author of Buffett, captures Long-Term's roller-coaster ride in gripping detail. Drawing on confidential internal memos and interviews with dozens of key players, Lowenstein crafts a story that reads like a first-rate thriller from beginning to end. He explains not just how the fund made and lost its money, but what it was about the personalities of Long-Term's partners, the arrogance of their mathematical certainties, and the late-nineties culture of Wall Street that made it all possible.
When Genius Failed is the cautionary financial tale of our time, the gripping saga of what happened when an elite group of investors believed they could actually deconstruct risk and use virtually limitless leverage to create limitless wealth. In Roger Lowenstein's hands, it is a brilliant tale peppered with fast money, vivid characters, and high drama.
Download Description
John Meriwether, a famously successful Wall Street trader, spent the 1980s as a partner at Salomon Brothers, establishing the best--and the brainiest--bond arbitrage group in the world. A mysterious and shy midwesterner, he knitted together a group of Ph.D.-certified arbitrageurs who rewarded him with filial devotion and fabulous profits. Then, in 1991, in the wake of a scandal involving one of his traders, Meriwether abruptly resigned. For two years, his fiercely loyal team--convinced that the chief had been unfairly victimized--plotted their boss's return. Then, in 1993, Meriwether made a historic offer. He gathered together his former disciples and a handful of supereconomists from academia and proposed that they become partners in a new hedge fund different from any Wall Street had ever seen. And so Long-Term Capital Management was born.
Customer Reviews:
Illuminating and Fascinating Business Classic.......2007-10-07
Roger Lowenstein's 'When Genius Failed' has been justly acclaimed as a business classic. In the wake of the 2007 credit crunch, Lowenstein's riveting study of the 1998 collapse of Long Term Capital Management (LTCM) retains its relevance and has much to teach market observers.
Ironically, LTCM had much going for it. The firm was founded by savvy Salomon Brothers veterans, and its luminaries included Nobel Prize winner Myron Scholes, the creator of the acclaimed Black-Scholes options pricing model. LTCM was also established on the premise of hedging risk and thereby minimizing financial loss.
The unraveling of LTCM, lucidly and compelling depicted by Lowenstein, has many parallels with the subprime mortgage meltdown of 2007:
--An unwavering faith in financial engineering, coupled with the erroneous belief that financial structures will protect against substantial losses.
--The insatiable search for higher yields in crowded markets, which ultimately drives even savvy managers to investments with unfortunate risk profiles.
--The use of significant amounts of borrowed capital to boost returns. Sadly, the use of leverage forces the rapid liquidation of positions to repay lenders during declining market conditions, excarbating market slides and the withdrawal of credit.
--Hubris. Hedge fund managers and successful traders tend to get overconfident after a run of good luck, leading them to take riskier positions with borrowed capital.
Together, these factors led to the downfall of LTCM and to the 2007 subprime meltdown.
Kudos to Roger Lowenstein for demystifying the arcana of derivatives trading and the Black-Scholes model-- if you want an account that describes these subjects lucidly, this is your book. As well, Lowenstein offers a riveting depiction of the 1998 market slide that sent LTCM reeling toward insolvency, and the rescue events coordinated by the Federal Reserve and undertaken by an international capital consortium.
Bottom line: a five star financial read that maintains its relevance.
Incredible story.......2007-10-06
Two things make this a great book: a riveting story (losing hundreds of millions a day is mind-boggling) and excellent writing. Roger Lowenstein, first of all, is a master of using analogies explain complex things, like financial derivaties and how the big investment banks operate. Long Term Capital Management was a gang of complex gamblers (including a couple of Nobel Prize winners to boot) that employed equations and theories from the academic world of finance to build an enormously successful hedge fund that sucked in the big banks of Wall Street. Lowenstein details the rise of LTCM (it seems it had to have taken place with an interesting mixture of Luck, Smarts, and Arrogance) and their massive and rapid failure with a cadence that makes it difficult to put the book down. When Genius Failed offers a glimpse into the world of big-time finance and the unrepentant and bizarre characters that it attracts (the money these guys rake it in and how they do it will stun you if you aren't familiar with Wall Street). Highly recommended - even a decade after the collapse of LTCM!
great book.......2007-09-20
Great read. Didn't want to put it down and finished it in a few days. Great to read how these smart guys lost all their money by being too greedy. Thumbs up for sure.
A fantastic tale of risk, reward and rue.......2007-09-20
It's a wonderfully written account of a remarkable risk taking adventrue crafted by the best of wall street's arbitrage mavens and acclaimed academic laureates. Author has done a supreb job as a slueth who followed the trail that aparantly divulged very little about its journey into the financial debacle that could've brought the whole financial world down. Throughout the work of the author, one can perceive the vastness of his research into this matter, his depth of knowledge in the world of arbitrage and his exquisite story telling skill.
He portrayed each character with great care that went above and beyond what I expected. Though at times the deatils seemed a bit overwhelming and unnecessary, it was enjoyable nonetheless.
Besides gaining a great deal of knowledge about bond trading, risk arbitrage and about all the parties associated with it, it also gave me a good picture about the human inter-relations that plays into the rise and fall of such wall street ventures. One thing I wanted to see in this book is Greenspan's involvement and opinion on this. But, not sure why his role in the shoring up of LTCM wasn't covered. I earlier read a book on Greenspan where his rebuttal on the criticism of Fed's involvement with the bail out LTCM was deatiled. I expected Lowenstein to cover this as well.
I first came across the story of LTCM from Taleb's "Black Swan", then went to wikipedia to know more about it, and finally got a hold of this book and I'm glad that I did. I love real life stories where turns of events and drama unfold from the work of an invisible hand, not from that of a gifted writer. I would love to see the story of LTCM on big screen one of these days. I caught a glimse of the NOVA's episode "The Trillion Dollar Bet [2000]" which covered LTCM, but I couldn't get a hold of the full content.
It's a must read for anyone who has interest in wall street, business, risk and how they all work. Lowenstein is a great writer in my opinion and I will move on to reading his pervious work on Buffet.
Great insight into market movements.......2007-09-12
The LTCM story is fascinating, and Lowenstein makes clear enough what kind of 'hedging' they were doing. The most valuable details to me were the intertwining of instituions and trades. I thought it illuminated how forced trading and fear can spread. Also captures the mood of the nineties well, I'd like to find detailed history of other market eras.
And from an academic viewpoint, his discussion of 'fat tails' was great.
Book Description
Term Sheets & Valuations is the first ever in-depth look at the nuts and buts of terms sheets and valuations. The book, written by leading venture capitalist Alexander Wilmerding of Boston Capital Ventures, covers topics such What is a Term Sheet, How to Examine a Term Sheet, A Section-by-Section View of a Term Sheet, Valuations, What Every Entrepreneur & Executive Needs to Know About Term Sheets, Valuation Parameters, and East Coast Versus West Coast Rules. In addition, the book includes an actual term sheet from a leading law firm with line by line descriptions of each clause, what can/should be negotiated, and the important points to pay attention to. A must have book for any executive, entrepreneur, or financial professional.
Praise for Term Sheets & Valuations:
"This primer should be required reading for every entrepreneur. It is short, authoritative and worth its weight in gold." - Murray Low, Executive Director, Columbia Business School, Eugene M. Lang Center for Entrepreneurship
"An invaluable resource for executives and financial professionals." - Graham D.S. Anderson, General Partner, EuclidSR Partners
"A valuable resource for entrepreneurs..." - Jeffrey Donohue, Esq.
Download Description
Term Sheets & Valuations is the first ever in-depth look at the nuts and buts of terms sheets and valuations. The book, written by leading venture capitalist Alexander Wilmerding of Boston Capital Ventures, covers topics such What is a Term Sheet, How to Examine a Term Sheet, A Section-by-Section View of a Term Sheet, Valuations, What Every Entrepreneur & Executive Needs to Know About Term Sheets, Valuation Parameters, and East Coast Versus West Coast Rules. In addition, the book includes an actual term sheet from a leading law firm with line by line descriptions of each clause, what can/should be negotiated, and the important points to pay attention to. A must have book for any executive, entrepreneur, or financial professional.
Customer Reviews:
Short, concise & useful.......2007-08-20
This short text is concise, easily read and a most useful tool. If you need to understand term sheets, the short time it will take to read and digest this volume will be well invested.
Term Sheets & Valuations is also an excellent source of reference. It gives an accurate and authoritative view of the subject to hand.
Good Content, Bad Format.......2007-03-06
Term Sheets and Valuations analyzes the finer details of VC term sheets within a framework of what are "investor favorable", "middle-of-the-road", or "company favorable" elements. While this format is helpful, the excerpts are sometimes a bit hard to follow. Not being an attorney, I found this a somewhat arduous read, especially for such a short book.
A better format would have been to include three separate term sheets properly marked up to highlight key differences. This would have required four documents: the book and three separate term sheets. Despite the increased printing costs, it would have been well worth it.
Another problem with the book is the lack of valuation information. Given the title, I would have expected extensive valuation examples. There really aren't any, sadly. This appears to have been done for extreme brevity.
The author does deserve credit for distilling a subject into a rather brief text. Given the limited population that would truly be interested in the nuances of term sheets, his attempt at this book was rather admirable.
Just what I needed.......2006-06-28
This book is a quick read and addressed the outages in my understanding of how to value companies and structure rounds of funding.
Check Out Author's DVD as Well - Negotiating Term Sheets.......2006-05-17
This was a really great resource - but even better is author's new product called Negotiating Term Sheets and Valuations in Venture Capital Deals (ISBN 1597010987). It is a 100 minute DVD that has a lot of different material in it that is critical for term sheets and valuations. It also covers specific negotiation strategies and roles and motivations for each key deal participant - which is not covered in the book.
A Must for Term Sheet Analysis and Composition.......2006-05-15
A great book for understanding term sheets and a much needed book for entrepreneurs, who really do not have many good books to choose from.
Alex provides a concise easy-to-follow explanation of the variability of term sheet design. I would recommend this book be purchased not with his other one, Deal Terms (because it is really terrible), but with what I feel is the best book for entrepreneurs written as far as the quality of content,
The Startup Company Bible for Entrepreneurs (Stathis).
This book tells it ALL, including how to understand term sheets and much more.
Book Description
The Financial Principles Every Venture Capitalist Needs To Master
In Andrew Metrick’s Venture Capital and the Finance of Innovation, future and current venture capitalists will find a useful guide to the principles of finance and the financial models that underlie venture capital decisions. Assuming no knowledge beyond concepts covered in first-year MBA course, the book will familiarize you with:
- The relationship between risk and return in venture capital
- Historical statistics on the performance of venture capital investments
- Total Valuation - the data and methods used to value a high-growth company
- Partial Valuation – how to analyze the special features of VC transactions such as convertible preferred stock, participating preferred stock, payment-in-kind dividends, and liquidation preferences
- A framework for modeling investment in "research and development"
- The relationship between strategy and finance
- Cutting-edge techniques such as Monte-Carlo analysis, real options, binomial trees, and game theory
About the Author:
Andrew Metrick is an Associate Professor of Finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he teaches Venture Capital and the Finance of Innovation. Dr. Metrick received a BA in Economics and Mathematics from Yale and a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard. Dr. Metrick has received numerous teaching awards and distinctions, including recognition by BusinessWeek as one of the best teachers at Wharton.
"This book is an excellent bridge between finance theory and venture capital practice. Metrick presents cutting-edge financial tools, creatively apllied to venture capital and R&D investing. It is destined to become the required reading for all students and practitioners in the field."
—Paul A. Gompers, Eugene Holman Professor of Business Administration & Director of Research, Harvard Business School
"Despite the increasing importance of the venture capital industry, until now there was no reference that could provide practitioners with a specialized grounding in finance. With clear explanations and practical models, Metrick’s book can fill this gap. I enthusiastically recommend this book to all venture capitalists."
—Ted Schlein, Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
"Investors in young, fast-growing companies have a new way to calculate their value without regard to the prices of other companies’ stocks. This is an important advance, because most other appraisal methods for start-ups are based on relative valuation, which – as we saw at the top of the Internet bubble – grossly overvalues a new company when comparable companies in the same industry are also overvalued."
—Mark Hulbert, The New York Times, Dec. 31, 2006
Customer Reviews:
Best Book in its Class.......2007-06-09
After reading through this book and the financial models, I have to say that this is the best book in its class.
Dr. Metrick did a fantastic job.
I recommend this book to anyone interested in the mechanics of the venture capital industry.
An amazing book.......2007-05-07
The book is very comprehensive and covers a lot of venture capital finance. It clarifies a lot of concepts and applies them very creatively to Venture Capital. A good book to learn about the VC industry and in general finance (as VC finance uses the concepts very effectively)
Must buy and extremely useful for anyone in VC, R&D and Strategy.......2007-01-28
That's a great book that gives a comprehensive overview of all finance aspects that are related to VC, R&D and innovation. It has a useful and effective framework of how to think of innovation in a methodical way. After working as a strategy consultant for a couple of years I thought that with the knowledge I gained from this book I will be far more effective: more effective in analysing alternatives and assesing them and more effective in communicating it to my clients. The balance between theory and practical application of finance is exactly what I was looking for.
If you are intrested in VC in general, the first part of it will provide you with a comprehensive overview of the VC industry.
Best book of its kind.......2007-01-25
Metrick's book clearly and concisely illustrates the finance behind venture capital. Accessibly written, this book is the kind of book you would use to teach yourself how to apply the tools of finance to VC. I found it especially useful in understanding the different structures VCs use and in understanding the impact of additional financing on the valuation of a prior investor's shares. The examples in the book are well done and walk the reader through the numbers in a way that is easy to follow and illuminates the ideas articulated in the text.
This book is for anyone who wants to:
- understand how to apply finance to VC
- understand the different structures VCs use to protect their interests (this book is especially for entrepreneurs who want to understand the financial terms of a VC's offer)
- learn how to apply option pricing theory and Monte Carlo simulation to make financially informed decisions about R&D, etc.
You don't need a background in finance to get value out of this book (although it is helpful to be quantitatively inclined). It's written clearly enough and the math is simple enough that anyone with a working knowledge of algebra should be ok.
This book is NOT for people who want a book on how to be a VC, or how to evaluate a management team or business idea. While the book definitely has practical implications, in reality VCs probably don't actually use very many of the financial models in the book because they haven't bothered to build them. After reading this book, you'll be able to understand these models and, if you're good with Excel, build them yourself.
All in all, whoever buys this book will come away with the vocabulary and financial frameworks necessary to have an intelligent conversation with a VC. It's by far the best book of its kind.
Outstanding, comprehensive and utterly sensible analysis of the venture capital business.......2007-01-15
Professor Metrick is brilliant as a teacher, meticulous as a researcher and entertaining as a comedian. He captures his lucid lecturing style into written form with this book.
It's the closest you can come to attending one of Wharton's most coveted and insightful MBA classes without paying $80,000 and 2 years of lost salary.
Book Description
Learn about today's hottest new risk management tools
One of the hottest areas of finance today, alternative risk transfer, or ART, refers to the use of various insurance products to manage market, credit, operational, legal, environmental, and other forms of risk. As the capital and insurance markets continue to converge, the number and complexity of new risk-defraying insurance products available to corporations, brokerages, money managers and other financial professionals will continue to grow. Expert Christopher L. Culp uses case studies of recent ART transactions used by risk managers to put the field into perspective for financial professionals and to acquaint them with the various types of risk control products now available. In addition he explores, in-depth, the links between ART, derivatives and bank-arranged risk financing, and he explains the key differences between classic insurance products and financial guarantees, risk financing, bundled layering, and other ART forms.
Customer Reviews:
For Useless Academics.......2004-04-03
If you are a practicioner, skip this book. Even academics will find this rehash (and outright clone) of better material a waste of time.
Packed with Knowledge!.......2002-11-12
Finance professional and professor Christopher L. Culp tells all, that is, all about alternate risk transfer (ART) products. Culp discusses corporate finance in detail, covering different types of capital. He sets out the risk control and capital structure functions of various classical and alternative risk transfer steps, such as derivatives targeted at market and credit risk, asset divestiture, insurance and reinsurance. Don't even go here if you aren't already familiar with (or studying) the sophisticated basics of finance, since this is highly technical reading, including numerous formulas, charts and graphs describing financial theories and processes. But if you are an expert, we from getAbstract congratulate you on finding your way to Culp, who aimed his book at the already-savvy: corporate treasurers, financial officers and those who participate in capital markets and the reinsurance industry.
Book Description
Praise for Service-Oriented Architecture
"This book provides a superb overview of the SOA topic. Marks and Bell provide practical guidance across the entire SOA life cycle-from business imperatives and motivations to the post-deployment business and technical metrics to consider. With this book, Marks and Bell demonstrate a unique ability to take the complex dynamics of SOA, and through an eloquent set of metaphors, models, and principles, provide an understandable and insightful how-to manual for both technical and business executives. This will become a required handbook for any organization implementing SOA."
—Dan Bertrand, Enterprise Technology Officer & EDS Fellow, EDS Corporation
"A fundamental breakthrough in the business and technology perspectives of SOA-this book belongs in every software developer, architect, and IT executive library. Marks and Bell demonstrate a creative and practical approach to building complex, service-oriented systems. I especially liked the hands-on perspective brought to multiple aspects of SOA. A must-have guide in the technology turbulence of the future."
—Ariel Aloni, Chief Technology Officer, SunGard Data Management Solutions
"This outstanding text gets straight to the heart of the matter, cutting through the hyperbole and discussing how to drive real business value through SOA. It will certainly impact my behavior, our governance models, and, subsequently, the successful business outcomes we derive as we continue to embrace SOA. A must-read for battle-scarred SOA veterans and fledgling architects alike."
—Christopher Crowhurst, Vice President and Chief Architect, Thomson Learning
"Too often, SOA has been perceived as 'all about the technology'-standards, technology stacks, operational monitoring, and the like. In this book, Marks and Bell expand beyond the technology to provide a refreshing business-driven perspective to SOA, connecting the dots between business requirements, architecture, and development and operations, and overlaying these perspectives with tried-and-true governance techniques to keep SOA initiatives on track. A must-read for those leading the charge to adopt SOA within their enterprise."
—Brent Carlson, Chief Technology Officer, LogicLibrary and coauthor of San Francisco Design Patterns: Blueprints for Business Software
"Marks and Bell have captured a wealth of practical experience and lessons learned in what has become the hottest topic in software development. In this book, they explain in detail what works and what does not, from procedural issues to technical challenges. This book is an invaluable reference for organizations seeking the benefits of SOAs."
—Dr. Jeffrey S. Poulin, System Architect, Lockheed Martin and author of Measuring Software Reuse: Principles, Practices, and Economic Models
"One of the last things companies often consider when implementing a business solution such as SOA is the impact on people. Marks and Bell provide an in-depth look at 'what has to change' from a process standpoint to make any SOA implementation a success. A great read for those considering to embark on an enterprise SOA and looking for the right mix of people, process, and products."
—Alan Himler, Vice President of Product Management and Marketing, LogicLibrary
SOA is a complex topic and a complex organizational goal
Service-Oriented Architecture: A Planning and Implementation Guide for Business and Technology shows you how to plan, implement, and achieve SOA value through its prescriptive approach, joining the business and strategic perspective to the technical and architectural perspective.
Applicable to all industries, technology platforms, and operating environments, this innovative book provides you with the essential strategies to drive greater value from your SOA and realize your business goals.
Download Description
Praise for Service-Oriented Architecture ""This book provides a superb overview of the SOA topic. Marks and Bell provide practical guidance across the entire SOA life cycle-from business imperatives and motivations to the post-deployment business and technical metrics to consider. With this book, Marks and Bell demonstrate a unique ability to take the complex dynamics of SOA, and through an eloquent set of metaphors, models, and principles, provide an understandable and insightful how-to manual for both technical and business executives. This will become a required handbook for any organization implementing SOA."" Dan Bertrand, Enterprise Technology Officer & EDS Fellow, EDS Corporation ""A fundamental breakthrough in the business and technology perspectives of SOA-this book belongs in every software developer, architect, and IT executive library. Marks and Bell demonstrate a creative and practical approach to building complex, service-oriented systems. I especially liked the hands-on perspective brought to multiple aspects of SOA. A must-have guide in the technology turbulence of the future."" Ariel Aloni, Chief Technology Officer, SunGard Data Management Solutions ""This outstanding text gets straight to the heart of the matter, cutting through the hyperbole and discussing how to drive real business value through SOA. It will certainly impact my behavior, our governance models, and, subsequently, the successful business outcomes we derive as we continue to embrace SOA. A must-read for battle-scarred SOA veterans and fledgling architects alike."" Christopher Crowhurst, Vice President and Chief Architect, Thomson Learning
Customer Reviews:
AN EXCELLENT TECHNOLOGY BOOK .......2007-07-02
This book is an excellent SOA technological introduction that presents major architectural concerns that most architects, team leads, developers, and software modelers struggle with. It addresses fundamental service-oriented challenges and provides viable solutions that IT professionals can employ:
- A service lifecycle that identifies major modeling disciplines
- Introduction to service-oriented analysis, design, and realization
- Introduction to service-oriented technologies
- A service-oriented integration model that provide viable interoperable solutions
- Service reusability model that elaborates on various methods that can facilitate asset reuse in organizations
I'd recommend this book to IT personnel and SOA practitioners that would like to learn more about starting service-oriented projects and achieving effective results.
Business Focused SOA .......2007-06-26
This book is a must read for the Executive and Architect responsible for transforming their business processes and IT infrastructure from something resembling an anchor to an agile, flexible system that enables corporate progress. This book will show you a process that will help you get off step 0, define the right services, and ensure that your SOA efforts resolve your business and IT challenges. When implementing an SOA, the technology is the easy part, ensuring that services are created in a consistent manner, that they are designed with reuse in mind, that s/w creation, and hence new product development, gets less expensive and takes less time, over time, that's the hard part, that's where SOA Governance comes in, and this book will give you the SOA Governance basics you need to get your SOA transformation off to a good start. Get control of Governance and your 75% there. This book will not provide code snippets, developer advice, or describe technical specifications, if you want these things, get Thomas Url' or Greg Lomow' books. This book is about using a top-down business service analysis, bottom-up implementation considered, iterative SOA design model. Read it to develop or improve your SOA planning capabilities.
Not for a Developer.......2007-05-15
Note: My strong dislike of this book probably says more about me than the book...
As a developer I like books that bridge the technical and the business gap. I need to see, in concrete examples, how things might be implemented -- I want to see code, configuration documents, snippets of policy code etc. I also find it helpful when books build upon a sample application. I wanted to see examples of the technology that enables SOA, walk-thrus of standards such WSPL.
This book has none of that. To me it is a book of high-level lists of lists and every section I've read leaves me wondering what it said. I think they repeat themselves too much and the book seems poorly organized with material half way through a chapter which seemed to me to belong at the start. For all it being high-level, they make an assumption that the reader is familiar with a host of acronyms and/or the technology behind them.
SOA - Pragmatic Advice .......2007-03-05
Much has been written about the promise of SOA and, at the same time, the difficulty in realizing that promise to date. Most of us who work in this field know by now how to address the technical concepts, architecture and services in an SOA. Where this book stands apart from so many others is that it provides both conceptual and pragmatic advice in three critical areas which need attention for SOA to mature, to achieve business buy-in, and to attain the "SOA network effect" as the authors call it. These keys are: shifting focus to identification of candidate business services; SOA governance, organization, and behavior; and a framework for an SOA business case, ROI model and scorecard.
I enthusiastically recommend this book for the authors' lucid, insightful chapters on these three subjects alone. That they are woven nicely into a more complete system of processes and supporting structures to nurture along SOA through critical mass is an added bonus.
A Must Read !!!!.......2007-01-23
"Service Oriented Architecture is a hot topic and will be for times to come however it is often misunderstood topic in the Information Technology field today. Based on the SDN Network IT professionals see the potential of an SOA -- especially a web services-based SOA -- in dramatically speeding up the application development process They also see it as a way to build applications and systems that are more adaptable, and in doing so, they see IT becoming more agile in responding to changing business needs. Not only is SOA a hot topic, but it's clearly the wave of the future. Gartner reports that "By 2008, SOA will be a prevailing software engineering practice, ending the 40-year domination of monolithic software architecture" and that "Through 2008, SOA and web services will be implemented together in more than 75 percent of new SOA or web services projects." Bell articulately describes the concepts, specifications, technical nuisances and standards behind service orientation and Web Services. One primary objective of applying SOA in design is to provide business value to the solutions we build. Understanding the right approach to analyzing, designing, and developing service-oriented solutions is critical. This book is a must read!"
Books:
- The Lady and the Panda: The True Adventures of the First American Explorer to Bring Back China's Most Exotic Animal
- The Last of the Wine
- The Mayan Oracle: Return Path to the Stars (Book, 44 Cards, 20 Mayan Star Glyphs, 13 Numbers,and 11 Lenses of Mystery)
- The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language, Numbered Edition, Brown Alligator and Tan, Bonded Leather
- The Other End of the Leash
- The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists: A Novel
- The Post-Birthday World
- The Secret
- The Shawshank Redemption: The Shooting Script (Newmarket Shooting Script Series)
- The Snow Queen
Books Index
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