In this gripping, brilliantly reported, and sure to be news-making book, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Ron Suskind tells the complete story of the nation's financial meltdown and an untested new president charged with commanding Washington, taming Wall Street, rescuing an economy on the verge of collapse, and restoring the confidence of a shaken nation.

Suskind moves from the frenzied trading floors of lower Manhattan to the power corridors inside the Beltway and introduces a larger than life cast of politicians and advisors, titans of high finance, reformers, lobbyists, and others who faced a crisis that threatened not only a nation, but the entire world. Based on hundreds of hours of interviews and exhaustive research, filled with piercing insight and startling disclosures, Suskind’s eye-opening book goes beyond the headlines and previous accounts, bringing to into focus the unprecedented struggle between Wall Street and Washington, between hope and fear