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The Quants: How A New Breed Of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street And Nearly Destroyed It (2010)

by Scott Patterson(Favorite Author)

3.77 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0307453375 (ISBN13: 9780307453372)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Crown Business

review 1: I don't think I've ever witnessed the reviews of a book which more pointedly reflect the personal biases/grievances/et al of the reviewers as this one does ... I worked a floor down from one of the main "characters" in this book from 2002-2007, so I know lots of these "types" in the real world and I don't think my experience has colored my perception of this as being an engaging & entertaining narrative. Some of these concepts could have been explained more easily - others, more thoroughly - but I felt the author's choice in most instances was appropriate within the parameters of providing narrative flow. Sure, the individual characterizations run the gamut from Tom Wolfe to Nicholas Nassim Taleb "lite" but, overall, I thought it was fairly balanced, pleasurable, informa... moretive, and quick read. I'm glad I didn't bother reading any of these reviews ... sometimes I think people forget reviewing a book is supposed to be about the BOOK and not them!
review 2: I'd give the beginning of the book 5 stars as it describes several of the key players in the evolution of quantitative finance and brings their lineage forward. I'd give the end 4 stars on interest but maybe 3 for seeming to try a little too hard to tie a lot of things to the quants. It seems to go on a little long at the end, but he did have a tremendous amount of ground to cover, trying to pick up the credit default swaps and various securitized iterations and hedges thereof. I'd recommend it overall. less

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