A first-person account of the white-knuckle weekend that brought the financial world to its knees, from one of America's most famous business reporters. As bankers and government officials scrambled to keep the economy from total collapse during the weekend of September 12-14, 2008, top CNBC anchor Maria Bartiromo was taking frantic phone calls from the most powerful players on Wall Street and in Washington. Through these intimate conversations, she had an unequaled perspective on the crisis and its aftermath, the personalities involved, and the emotions at work. Now she draws on her high-level network to provide an eyewitness account of the biggest events of the financial crisis, including lengthy interviews with former treasury secretary Henry Paulson, former AIG chairman Hank Greenberg, and former Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain, among many others. Writing with both authority and dramatic flair, Bartiromo also tackles the big questions: how did an unmatched period of market euphoria and growth turn sour, catapulting the economy into a dangerous slide? And in the long run, how will the near catastrophe really change Wall Street?