|
Rigged: The True Story of an Ivy League Kid Who Changed the World of Oil, from Wall Street to Dubai | 
enlarge | Author: Ben Mezrich Publisher: William Morrow Category: Book
List Price: $25.95 Buy New: $5.75 You Save: $20.20 (78%)
New (41) Used (29) Collectible (1) from $5.51
Avg. Customer Rating: 58 reviews Sales Rank: 7575
Media: Hardcover Edition: 1 Number Of Items: 1 Pages: 304 Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2 Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2
ISBN: 0061252727 Dewey Decimal Number: 332.6442282092 EAN: 9780061252723 ASIN: 0061252727
Publication Date: October 23, 2007 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Shipping: Expedited shipping available Shipping: International shipping available Condition: GREAT Bargain Book Deal - like new, some may have small remainder mark - Ships out by NEXT Business Day - Over ONE MILLION Amazon orders filled - 100% Satisfaction Guarantee!
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
From the author who brought you the massive New York Times bestseller Bringing Down the House, this is the startling rags-to-riches story of an Italian-American kid from the streets of Brooklyn who claws his way into the wild, frenetic world of the oil exchange. After conquering the hallowed halls of Harvard Business School, he enters the testosterone-laced warrens of the Merc Exchange, the asylumlike oil exchange located in lower Manhattan. A place where billions of dollars trade hands every week, the Merc is like a casino on crack, where former garbagemen become millionaires overnight and where fistfights break out on the trading floor. This ordinary kid has traded Brooklyn for the gold-lined hotel palaces of Dubai. He keeps company on the decks of private yachts in Monte Carlo—teeming with half-naked girls flown in by Saudi sheiks—and makes deals in the dangerous back alleys of Beijing. But the Merc is just a starting place. Taken under the wing of another young gun and partnering with a mysterious young Muslim, the kid embarks on a dangerous adventure to revolutionize the oil trading industry—and, along with it, the world. Rigged is the explicit, exclusive, true story behind the headlines that dominate the world stage.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 53 more reviews...
Ah...Not So much June 26, 2008 Mezrich books have been fun in the past, blackjack etc. and I really enjoyed Ugly Americans. However, this book is one dimensional with the minus of exaggerated dramatic situations. I cannot complain too much as I read it in a day, definitely fast paced, but I kept waiting for something cooler or more interesting to happen, which never did. To save you the time; Ivy league Kid gets job at the MERC in NY, UAE is figuring out how to position themselves for the future as a tiny middle eastern country and want to set up oil exchange in Dubai, NY Kid goes to Dubai and helps set up mid east oil mercantile exchange. Woulda been a good magazine article. Anyways I cannot recommend this book. "Bringing Down the House" and "Ugly Americans" were definitely much more interesting.
Worst book yet June 19, 2008 I have read all of Mezrich's fiction books. This was the worst one of them all. I was waiting for the plot to improve and it never did. The ending was boring to say the least...
A mildly thrilling thriller, plus an infomercial for the emirate of Dubai June 19, 2008 By the author's own admission, this "biography" is a composite profile and composite account of people and doings connected with the Mercantile Exchange. It's literally impossible to know how much of it is fiction and how much fact. It could be accepted as a work of fiction, with a few more thrills thrown in.
It serves mainly to boost the image of Dubai as a paradise of capitalist extravagance and political stability in the war-torn Middle East. One wonders how much of a hand that country's boosters had in crafting these passages, as nothing is mentioned of the armies of "guest workers" there, indentured Indians, Filipinos and such, who keep the play palaces running.
One fair question that the reader might ask, in these days of $4.00 a gallon gasoline, is why is it a good thing for Dubai to host a petroleum trading floor? There's no answer here.
Entertaining, but ultimately not informative June 15, 2008 Mezrich's skill as a writer is limited. His characters are shallow caricatures and his plot jumps from action packed scene to scene. At best, this is a screenplay for a fictional story about starting a new exchange.
Skip Mezrich, look for something by Michael Lewis instead.
Skippable, but okay for light reading.... June 5, 2008 Okay for light reading, but this is not as good as Mezrich's other works. He gets over his breast fetish in this one.
The setting is back and forth between New York and Dubai, with stops in playgrounds for the very very very rich in Europe.
The premise of the book is how two young men with a foot in each culture (Broklyn Italian-American and Ivy League kid counter-partied with a European-educated Wahhabist-Muslim Saudi) through luck, perseverance, and connections were able to persuade reluctant partnerships into a groundbreaking earth shattering development: an open-outcry/electronic trading oil exchange in the Middle East!!!
Errrrrrrhhhh aahhhhhh...
Forex has been trading in the Middle-East in Bahrain on an organized exchange for decades.
So the whole "innovation" and "revolution" GEE-WHIZ factor of the incessant theme of "The True Story Of An Ivy League Kid Who Changed The World Of Oil From Wall Street to Dubai" is lost on those of us who actually know something about international markets. These two kids aren't innovators, they simply extended an already established and proven successful model.
For traders and those with pit experience or financial experience there are both some funny characters that will be instantly recognizable, some "boys with toyz" hi-jinks that is becoming standard for the genre, and some jaw-dropping whoppers of mistakes that reinforce that this is more "truish" than truth.
But if you want to skip one of Mezrich's books, this is the one.
|
|
| Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |