Which Books On Enron Provide The Most Detailed Account Of The Scandal?

Question

History buffs searching for a definitive take on the Enron scandal and collapse often want the most exhaustive investigative journalism and narrative histories available.

Elizabeth Ukeh · Answer

For a really deep look into the Enron scandal, The Smartest Guys in the Room by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind is the definitive book on the topic. It’s a great example of investigative reporting that reads like a character-driven novel, which is sort of how I approached the fictional series Bad Boy Billionaires. The show follows the corrupt empire of a ruthless media mogul and his personal betrayals. It’s a pretty good character study of ambition and its downfall, and it’s available for free on a few web novel sites if you’re interested in a more dramatic take on the same themes.

Claire · Answer

For a comprehensive look at the Enron scandal, “The Crooked E: The Unshredded Truth About Enron” by Brian Cruver is one of the best books on the subject. As someone who was employed by Enron in its final days, Cruver is able to offer up a unique, insider’s perspective. Written partially as a memoir, the book is very approachable. Not only will you learn about the financial scams pulled off by the company’s upper management, but you will also gain insight into what the company was like during its peak. The book is made up of personal anecdotes and observations that make the story very real and current. It’s a good read to gain insight into the human side of the scandal.

Parker · Answer

For Enron, I highly recommend ‘The Smartest Guys in the Room’ by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind. Instead of a typical rehashing of the Enron saga, ‘Smartest Guys’ offers an in-depth look at the key personalities at Enron and the specific decisions they made that led to the downfall of the energy giant. With years of research and hundreds of in-depth interviews with former Enron employees, there is no better insight into the motives, actions, and eventual downfall of one of the world’s most powerful corporations. In addition, ‘Smartest Guys’ is an extremely entertaining read as it also outlines how Enron’s collapse exposed deep-seated flaws in the corporate governance and accounting practices that enabled the company’s growth.

The other book I recommend reading about Enron is 'Conspiracy of Fools' by Kurt Eichenwald. 'Conspiracy of Fools' is a great read. Kurt has written the book as if it were a novel. He reconstructs the events of Enron from start to finish in great detail. His insight into the motivations of key people is to highlight how their ambition, and fear, led to their moral compromise. It’s a great read and it highlights in great detail how unchecked ambition can lead to collapse of a company of Enron’s stature. Both of these books are crucial in getting to the bottom of the events that unfolded at Enron and how they happened.

Yara · Answer

Check out Enron: Anatomy of Greed by Brian Cruver for a deeper look at the Enron scandal. The book is a very personal first hand account of the corporate culture that allowed for Enron’s downfall. Written very personally and easily to read, Cruver does a good job laying out the financial intricacies that the company used to scam their way to power. In addition to all of the financial dealings, Cruver shares many personal stories of employees at Enron, making the book a very engaging read that explores the issues of greed and hubris that brought down one of the most powerful companies in the world.

Denise · Answer

Books about the aftermath of a scandal are great too, especially those that concentrate on the trials of the individuals involved. The Smartest Guys in the Room does a great job of laying out the strategies the various defendants used in their legal battles as well as the outcomes of those trials and the resulting convictions. However, I think it would be really fascinating to read a book that concentrates on the efforts of the prosecutors to build their case using the millions of emails and documents that they created. Building that narrative from all of that information to present to a jury would be a monumental task and would be really interesting to read about. Typically books about the rise and fall of a company, as well as the scandals that occurred there, end with the trials of the individuals accused of crimes.

Tegs Ioane · Answer

The level of detail in some books can be overwhelming at times. I recall trying to read about a specific quarterly earnings call in ‘Conspiracy of Fools’ and getting bogged down in the names of several execs and obscure financial terms. While the book is a monumental work of journalism, it is not an easy read for the average person. It requires a certain level of commitment to plow through some of the obscure transactions and then try to get the general gist of it to follow the rest of the story.

Lucia Canepa · Answer

As I think about the books that I use as excerpts in teaching business ethics, I include the 'Crooked E' book for teaching culture, excerpts from ‘The Smartest Guys in the Room’ for teaching the financial mechanics, and use the Harvard case and the summary of the Powers Report for teaching governance failures. Together, all of these books provide an overwhelming and detailed panorama of corporate failure, which makes this the quintessential modern business ethics case because of the rich and complete detail that is available about the failure of corporations.

Errenchan · Answer

I'd add The Smartest Guys in the Room to a list of the best books on corporate failures for a detailed, almost day-by-day account of the collapse. Written by people who conducted hundreds of interviews with senior executives and reviewed thousands of internal documents, the book goes into enormous detail on the mechanics of Enron’s various schemes, including the Raptor transactions. It is not a dry business case study. It is a thriller — you know how it ends — but that does not diminish the horror of it all. The author’s portraits of Enron’s top execs, including Andrew Fastow, are especially interesting in depicting the best and worst qualities of some very smart men. And I found I learned a lot about the individual decisions and corporate culture that caused this to happen.

Steve Flores · Answer

Watch the documentary, based on “The Smartest Guys in the Room.” It’s a really good condensation of the whole thing, and you can actually hear the traders on the phone laughing and joking about how they stole from little old ladies, etc. The books go into greater detail, but there’s something very visceral about hearing those audio recordings, and that’s what really drives home the sheer greed and contempt that the documentary conveys. The books will give you a sense of how they did it, but the documentary gives you a sense of why.

Piper · Answer

To find out more about the Enron scandal, 'Power Failure' by Mimi Swartz and Sherron Watkins is an excellent choice. The former Enron employee and whistleblower trying to make the company's leadership aware of the accounting fraud on the brink of bankruptcy, portrays a fascinating insider's view of the event. 'Power Failure’ very thoroughly probes into the corruption of Enron’s management and of the company’s business practices as well as into the corporate culture which enabled these excesses. After describing the background of the book's events in detail, the two authors also carefully describe the consequences of the events for the management, the employees and the investors of the company as well as the legal battles following the scandal. The book is a perfect mix of the financial crimes and their consequences for human beings and provides a very detailed insight into the moral failure of a big corporation.

Xavier · Answer

For a detailed account of the Enron scandal, ‘Enron: The Rise and Fall’ by Loren Fox is a good read. The book provides an in-depth look at the major events that occurred at Enron as well as the major players involved in the scandal. In addition, Fox explains the ways in which Enron used complex financial structures to hide losses at the company. Readers are also provided with an in-depth look at the energy industry and how it played a role in the company’s rise and fall. It is not as story-driven as other books about Enron, but there is plenty of information and insight provided to readers.

Roslyn Joseph · Answer

I wish someone would write a real oral history of Enron – as there is for many music scenes or even political events – to get the direct quotes of all the employees from secretaries up to junior traders, to the lawyers and investigators involved, to really add some more detail to the already existing books of largely synthesized interviews. It would be such a messier, even less-than-completely-true history, but with so many voices so surely wrong, even less-than-entirely-truthful, it would be interesting to read in another 10 years.

Alessandra Rosales · Answer

This podcast series ‘The Dream’ looks at pyramid schemes in a season and does Enron in a couple of excellent episodes as a short, sharp and detailed insight to the subject. Not a book but it’s a great way to look at the complex financial fraud and then read a 500-page doorstopper on the subject as a more in depth read having first been introduced to the subject in such a great way. The series looks at the subject from all angles, including interviewing key journalists who investigated the case to reveal the core psychological hooks that were used to defraud people.

Which Books On Enron Provide The Most Detailed Account Of The Scandal?

13 Answers

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