Rating: 
Summary: An enjoyable read
Review: Another business book that chronicles a (at the time) massive takeover battle for RJR Nabisco. It contains quite a comprehensive history of almost all the players featured and it is in that sense part biography. The takeover battle plays like a hollywood movie with all its twists and turns. I heard after reading the book that it was made into a movie which sounds quite fitting for a book with such vivid descriptions of events. I was amazed at the level of detail and had to wonder about the research required for such an all-encompassing project. It could only have been done by journalists who had lived in the middle of the events and who personally knew many of the people involved and I congratulate them not only on their thoroughness but on the style and organization. The hardest part in reading this book is keeping up with who's who since there are so many characters but it is not extremely essential to understanding the story. I recommend this as a casual read to anyone interested in the world of Wall Street and its mega-deals.
Rating: 
Summary: Great insight into workings of corporate America
Review: What an incredibly well researched book! This book gives the entire history of RJR Nabisco, including the legacy companies (which date back to the 1800's), focusing on the levarged buy-out (LBO) of the company in the late 80's. The book goes behind the scenes and details seemingly every conversation and action that took place - a credit to the incredibly thorough research which the authors did. The book is long, and at times tedious, but if you are interested in the early stages of the demise of junk bonds, leveraged buy-outs, and the technicalities of financing of corporate takeovers, this is a great book for you!
Rating:
Summary: Great book to get you thinking
Review: The book holds a well written story as well as many lessons for future business leaders.
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Read..... Even 10 Years Later
Review: Finally got around to reading this book and I must say that it is FASCINATING! What was most interesting to me was the lack of intelligence and abilities of those running RJR Nabisco and all their high-paid Wall Street help. If these are the kind of people who "run" our economy, we're in BIG trouble. An excellent story... even 10 years later.
Rating:
Summary: An In Depth Journalistic Accounting
Review: I read this book a few years back and what I would say is that for those with an interest in business and management or even business history it is a thoroughly entertaining read. This is not one of those dry reads one sometimes comes across in these contemporary accounts of events. The author is a working journalist for the Wall Street Journal as I recall and the need to consistently pack the details in with an interesting flourish on his day job does seem to show through in this effort and others. I recommend not just the book but the author as well (he has written other books dealing with business and organizations).
Rating:
Summary: Who'd Have Thought a <i>Business</i> Book Could Be So Good?
Review: Picture characters with the massive egos and ruthlessness of a James Ellroy novel. (OK, take away most of the violence and add lots more money.) Add in the daffiness of Dave Barry. Then make it about a business deal.
That's what you've got here. I would never have believed a book about real-life financial maneuvers could be so fascinating. The whole wall streeters as twisted megalomaniacs thing --- that's just a cartoonish stereotype, right? Maybe not. I once worked as a court reporter, and during a break at an SEC deposition a lawyer from Skadden-Aarps noticed I was reading this book. "I did some work on the RJR case," he said.
"Is F. Ross Johnson as crazy as this book makes him sound?" I asked.
"Ross? Oh, yeah. He's a loon," the lawyer replied.
Instead of a snooze-inducing retelling of the business pages, you get a funny, shocking and intriguing book. 600 pages go by in a flash. It's a great read.
Rating:
Summary: Will the real Man in Full please stand up?
Review: OK, first - this is a truly ripping yarn. There's enough corporate intrigue, maniacal boardroom posturing, gulfstream abuse and small men with big egos in these riveting 600 pages to knock even the Ewing family of Dallas into a cocked hat. From the beginning Burrough draws you into the preposterousness of what is happening, setting out well drawn characterisations of each of the main players, flipping between them in that totally enchanting "meanwhile, in Gotham city" fashion. Before long the threads are pulling together into a whirling tarantella of greed assaulting you from every side. It's difficult to work out who's meant to be the villain, mostly because I think everyone was. Full grown men startle for their utter failure in self-reflexion as much as for the appalling lengths to which they will go in the name of self-interest. The climax is as good as any thriller (I completely missed my stop on the tube, finally snapping out of a daze thinking, "hey I haven't been this excited since Jodi Foster went head to head with Buffalo Bill in Silence Of The Lambs!"). Secondly, and maybe not intentionally, Barbarians at the Gate is a piercing social/historical commentary - just by "telling it like it was" the narrative skewers the eighties, Wall street and the Reagan years so brutally it might as well be a spit roast. On this level it is leagues ahead of the celebrated fictional works which purport to do the same thing. In particular, Brett Ellis' "American Psycho", and Tom Wolfe's "A Man in Full", fare badly against Burrough's genuine article. I would be amazed of either Ellis or Wolfe hadn't read this book, but the novels of both are anemic and implausible in comparison. Barbarians at the Gate is more deadly accurate, it doesn't exagerrate or caricature the wall street banker like American Psycho does (and what value is there in caricaturing something which is so patently ridiculous in itself?), and the plot - needless to say - has a ring of credibility which is singularly lacking from A Man In Full. Oddly, the one area where the book falls down a little bit is in its aspiration (if it has one) to present a sensible, clear, commercial analysis of what was going on. But that's a trade off - had the Burroughs taken that route, then surely some of the dramatic impact would have been lost. As it is, he's produced a cracker.
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Summary: Giant Egos Clash at the Top
Review: I am a management consultant who works with companies that are interested in improving stock price, and I know many of the more humble people portrayed in BARBARIANS AT THE GATE. I would like to put this book into perspective for you. 20 years ago our firm did a survey of CEOs and found that 99 percent felt that trying to improve stock price was unethical and immoral, and involved doing manipulative things. After the takeover wars of the 1980s, most CEOs believed that improving stock price was an important task and could be done in an ethical way. There is nothing more disruptive to a company than to go through a hostile takeover, whether the bid succeeds or not. Raw greed and lust for power hold sway at such times, and many people will pay the price for having attracted the sharks into their swimming pool. Prior to the RJR Nabisco purchase by KKR, many large companies felt safe because of their size. They were suffering from "stalled" thinking, because it was widely believed that a deal of this sort could not be financed with debt at the time the takeover occurred. That was wrong: For a price, the money is always there. For those who have not been in these bruising ego battles, what you will not realize is that these contests are a lot like those you will remember from grade school on the playground when the teachers were not around. Bullying, threats, and naked power carry the day in a lot of situations. But because this is about ego, a lot of mistakes are made. RJR Nabisco continued to strain under mountains of debt for years, even after lots of refinancings because of the LBO. KKR's track record looks a lot different now than it did before buying RJR Nabisco. A lot of the fever behind the LBO's is gone, for now. Bring back a bear market for a few years, and this whole phenomena will recur. Some smart lawyer will find a way around the defenses that so many rely on for now. The only ultimate defense against the circling sharks is to have a high-priced multiple stock. That is the only timeless lesson for companies. If you are wondering how accurate this book is, it is more right than wrong. The authors did, however, miss some of the most intriguing ironies of the situation. Perhaps someday, someone with inside knowledge will write the sequel or unveil the whole, delicious irony. That should be a great story that will outsell GONE WITH THE WIND. With the benefit of this context, I do recommend you read the book. You'll find it stranger than fiction in many ways, and very exciting to watch. The authors have captured the emotion of the moment very well. It's a whale of a story.
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining Board Room Antics
Review: Its a good book from the perspective of corporate politics. Insightful as to the motivations of the different players. Disappointing from the finance side of things, as there was not enough information about the inner workings of the deals proposed to buy out RJR.
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Summary: How it happened - the fall of RJR Nabisco
Review: This book is really one of the finest of its genre. It charts the story of Ross Johnson, the money and power hungry executive who unwittingly placed RJR Nabisco conglomerate on the road to ruin. It takes a while to get used to the writer's habit of bouncing around from plot to sub-plot and character to character but when you reach the half way point in this book it really becomes interesting. Its almost like a roller coaster which climbs slowly and suddenly starts speeding to its destination. The story turns and twists, dips and rises and is absolutely magnificent to read, I couldn't put it down from the midway point. This is a must in anybody's library.
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