The first book of its kind: a thrilling and entertaining examination of hedge funds today. Nominated for the Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award.

The wealthy, powerful, and potentially dangerous hedge fund managers have emerged as the stars of 21st-century capitalism. Based on unprecedented access to the industry, More Money Than God provides the first authoritative history of hedge funds. This is the inside story of their origins in the 1960s and 1970s, their explosive clashes with central banks in the 1980s and 1990s, and ultimately their role in the financial crisis of 2007-2009.

Hedge funds reward risk-takers, so they tend to attract larger-than-life personalities. Jim Simons began as a code breaker and mathematician, co-authoring a paper on theoretical geometry that led to breakthroughs in string theory. Ken Griffin started trading convertible bonds from his Harvard dorm room. Paul Tudor Jones once stated that a 1929-style crash would be ‘total rock-and-roll’ for him.

A saga of wealth and egos, this is also a story of discovery. Drawing insights from mathematics, economics, and psychology to decipher the market's mysteries, hedge funds have transformed the world, creating new markets in exotic financial propositions and rewriting the rules of capitalism. While big banks, brokers, mortgage lenders, and insurers failed or were bailed out during the 2007-2009 crisis, the hedge fund industry passed the test, proving that money can be managed successfully without the taxpayer’s safety net. Anyone thinking about solutions for the financial system could start here: the future of finance lies in the history of hedge funds.

Pages: 504, Dimensions: 12.9x12.9cm