THE WAY IT WAS: An Oral History of Finance: 1967-1987

To mark the 20th anniversary of Institutional Investor magazine, the editors of this leading high-finance publication here offer interviews conducted in 1987 with 116 top players in the world of megabucks and megatrades. Among those interviewed are Walter Wriston, former Chairman of Citicorp; David Rockefeller, former Chairman of Chase Manhattan; Felix Rohatyn, Partner at Lazard Freres & Co.; the Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, John Phelan, Jr.; legendary corporate raider Carl Icahn. Together, they and the others offer a comprehensive anecdotal history of the past two decades of high finance, giving inside glimpses of an era of enormous change: daily trading volume on the New York Stock Exchange exploded from a few million shares to today's 200 million; investment banking transformed from a gentlemanly occupation into an area of cutthroat competition and business machismo; and financial markets became prey to hostile takeovers and the aggressive tactics of the corporate raiders. Regrettably, however, the early 1987 date of the interviews precludes any response by the interviewees to last year's Black Monday market crash. A treasury of sharp insight and insider tales, marred only by the self-congratulatory tone of many of the interviews.