Swimming with Sharks: My Journey into the World of the Bankers - Softcover

Luyendijk, Joris

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1783350644 ISBN 13: 9781783350643

Publisher: Guardian Faber Publishing, 2015

Synopsis

AN EVENING STANDARD BOOK OF THE YEAR 2015

Joris Luyendijk, an investigative journalist, knew as much about banking as the average person: almost nothing. Bankers, he thought, were ruthless, competitive, bonus-obsessed sharks, irrelevant to his life. And then he was assigned to investigate the financial sector.

Joris immersed himself in the City for a few years, speaking to over 200 people - from the competitive investment bankers and elite hedge-fund managers to downtrodden back-office staff, reviled HR managers and those made redundant in the regular 'culls'. Breaking the strictly imposed code of secrecy and silence, these insiders talked to Joris about what they actually do all day, how they see themselves and what makes them tick. They opened up about the toxic hiring and firing culture. They confessed to being overwhelmed by technological and mathematical opacity. They admitted that when Lehman Brothers went down in 2008 they hoarded food, put their money in gold and prepared to evacuate their children to the countryside. They agreed that nothing has changed since the crash.

Joris had a chilling realisation. What if the bankers themselves aren't the real enemy? What if the truth about global finance is more sinister than that?

About this title

Review

This is the most entertaining book on banking since Liar's Poker. (Simon Kuper)

Luyendijk dives deep into the most important social pocket in the world: among the elite financiers who nearly killed the global economy a few years ago - and who are right now carrrying on as before in a system that's as shaky as ever. All this is described not with spleen, but with an attentive empathy - and the book is all the more terrifying for it. (Aditya Chakrabortty)

An exploration of the inner workings of banking that's both enormously entertaining and utterly terrifying. Proceeding in his fair-minded, unsensationalist way, Joris Luyendijk ends up showing how the financial system has evolved to offer all the wrong psychological rewards for all the worst behaviour - and how we may be teetering on the brink of a greater crisis than those we've already seen. It's not (mainly) that bankers are bad people. It's far scarier than that. (Oliver Burkeman)

Based on interviews with bankers, Joris Luyendijk's Swimming with Sharks argues that the problem in banking is systematic rather than with individuals. While suggesting another crash is inevitable, Luyendijk also achieves the near-impossible: making you pity these "masters of the universe". (Evening Standard)

It is his willingness to see the good in his subjects that gives his final conclusion greater force. (Jonathan Ford Financial Times)

A fascinating anthropologist's study of financial system's culture. (George Cooper The Origin of Financial Crises)

Compact, readable and rich. (Der Spiegel)

Terrifying ... Luyendijk avoids banker bashing and clichés which makes this portrait all the more devastating. (De Volkskrant)

Highly readable...Luyendijk busts some myths and puts a much-needed human face on an opaque industry...it argues that those who work in finance are in some ways victims of its insanely high-pressured culture and makes the frightening point that almost no one is taking responsibility for the system itself. (Claire Allfree Metro)

"The fascinating account of many interviews conducted by investigative journalist Joris Luyendijk with people in the financial system in London... His final plea for attention to the issues is spot on and must be heard: 'Ignorance, denial, or apathy is simply not an option when it comes to a problem of this magnitude and urgency.'" (Best Books of 2015, Bloomberg Business)

Book Description

A gripping work of reportage about the time bomb at the heart of our society.

About this edition

• Publisher: Guardian Faber Publishing
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1783350644
• ISBN 13: 9781783350643
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288