Business · Similar reads
Books like Barbarians at the Gate
The best books like Barbarians at the Gate are Liar's Poker, When Genius Failed, and The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine. Barbarians at the Gate by Bryan Burrough is about greed, leverage, corporate culture. If that's what drew you in, here are 12 books that share its DNA — each summarized on Superbook, and ready to chat with in the app.
- Liar's Poker
01
Michael Lewis · Business
Liar's Poker is Michael Lewis's account of his years as a bond salesman at Salomon Brothers in the 1980s, the decade when Wall Street stopped being a gentleman's club and became something closer to a casino.
Michael Lewis reporting from inside 1980s Salomon Brothers, the same greed-is-good Wall Street that produced the RJR circus, told with the same insider relish.
Read the summary → - When Genius Failed
02
Roger Lowenstein · Economics
When Genius Failed is Roger Lowenstein's account of Long-Term Capital Management, the hedge fund that almost took down the global financial system in 1998.
Lowenstein reconstructs the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management with Barbarians' novelistic boardroom tension: brilliant men, enormous leverage, catastrophe.
Read the summary → - The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine
03
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine
Michael Lewis · Economics
The Big Short is Michael Lewis's account of the 2008 financial crisis as seen through the eyes of a handful of contrarians who saw the collapse coming, bet against the American housing market, and were right.
Lewis again, tracing the 2008 mortgage bust through a handful of vivid outsiders, the sequel to the Wall Street hubris you watched swallow RJR.
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- Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
04
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
John Carreyrou · Business
Bad Blood is Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou's account of Theranos, the blood-testing startup founded by Elizabeth Holmes that claimed its proprietary technology could run hundreds of diagnostic tests from a single finger-prick of blood.
Carreyrou's forensic takedown of Theranos is Barbarians for the startup era: a charismatic leader, willing enablers, and a slow-motion corporate unraveling.
Read the summary → - The End of Wall Street
05
Roger Lowenstein · Economics
The End of Wall Street is Roger Lowenstein's account of the 2008 financial crisis, from the early signs of trouble in the mortgage market through the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the government interventions, and the immediate aftermath.
Lowenstein narrates the 2008 crisis with the same eye for the bankers, egos, and leverage that drove the RJR fight two decades earlier.
Read the summary → - The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success
06
The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success
William N. Thorndike · Business
The Outsiders profiles eight CEOs whose long-term returns to shareholders dramatically outperformed the S&P 500 and their industry peers, often by factors of ten to one hundred.
Thorndike profiles eight CEOs who allocated capital with a discipline Ross Johnson utterly lacked, the sober counter-model to Barbarians' excess.
Read the summary → - More Money Than God
07
Sebastian Mallaby · Economics
Sebastian Mallaby's history of hedge funds begins with Alfred Winslow Jones, who in 1949 invented the basic structure that still defines the industry: borrow money to buy what you think will go up, sell short what you think will go down, take a 20 percent cut of the profits.
Mallaby's history of hedge funds is a gallery of the outsized personalities who move markets, the same money-men mystique that animates the RJR bidding war.
Read the summary → - Market Wizards
08
Jack D. Schwager · Business
Market Wizards is Jack Schwager's collection of interviews with some of the most successful traders of the 1970s and 1980s — Michael Marcus, Bruce Kovner, Richard Dennis, Paul Tudor Jones, and others who generated extraordinary returns over extended periods in futures, currencies, and equities.
Schwager lets legendary traders explain in their own words how they think about risk and edge, the mindset behind the dealmakers Burrough profiles.
Read the summary → - The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World
09
The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World
Niall Ferguson · Economics
Niall Ferguson published The Ascent of Money in 2008, with timing that turned out to be acute: the book appeared just as the global financial crisis was unfolding, making its subject matter suddenly urgent for readers who had barely thought about the mechanics of credit default swaps or mortgage securitization.
Niall Ferguson zooms out to the long history of finance, giving context for how leverage and debt became the weapons wielded in the RJR war.
Read the summary → - A Short History of Financial Euphoria
10
A Short History of Financial Euphoria
John Kenneth Galbraith · Economics
A Short History of Financial Euphoria is John Kenneth Galbraith's compressed account of speculative bubbles from the tulip mania of 1630s Holland through the 1987 US stock market crash.
Galbraith's brief, biting history of speculative manias lays bare the recurring pattern of leverage and delusion that Barbarians captures at its peak.
Read the summary → - Manias, Panics, and Crashes
11
Charles P. Kindleberger · Economics
Manias, Panics, and Crashes is Charles Kindleberger's analysis of financial crises across five centuries of history, first published in 1978 and updated in several subsequent editions.
Kindleberger's anatomy of financial bubbles is the theory to Barbarians' case study in how easy money and cheap debt reliably end badly.
Read the summary → - Fooled by Randomness
12
Nassim Nicholas Taleb · Psychology
Fooled by Randomness is Nassim Nicholas Taleb's argument that humans are wired to misread luck as skill, noise as signal, and random outcomes as the product of ability or effort.
Taleb on how traders mistake luck for skill, a bracing corrective to the self-made-genius myths swirling around the men in the RJR boardroom.
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Books like Barbarians at the Gate: quick answers
What are the best books like Barbarians at the Gate?
The best books like Barbarians at the Gate by Bryan Burrough are Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis, When Genius Failed by Roger Lowenstein, The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis, Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou, The End of Wall Street by Roger Lowenstein, plus 7 more below. Each was chosen for themes it shares with Barbarians at the Gate, such as greed, leverage, corporate culture.
What should I read after Barbarians at the Gate?
A natural next read after Barbarians at the Gate is Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis. Michael Lewis reporting from inside 1980s Salomon Brothers, the same greed-is-good Wall Street that produced the RJR circus, told with the same insider relish. Other strong choices are When Genius Failed by Roger Lowenstein, The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis, Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou.
What books are similar to Barbarians at the Gate by Bryan Burrough?
Barbarians at the Gate centers on greed, leverage, corporate culture. Books with a similar feel include Liar's Poker by Michael Lewis, When Genius Failed by Roger Lowenstein, The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis, Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou, The End of Wall Street by Roger Lowenstein, The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success by William N. Thorndike — all free to read and chat with on Superbook.
