Fuld’s Lehman ‘Peddled Junk,’ Betrayed Firm’s Founders

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-01/fuld-s-lehman-peddled-junk-betrayed-founders-principles-book-review.html

"Lehman’s final act became a sad morality tale familiar to students of corporate governance: A great family firm succumbed to outsiders more interested in making fast money than in providing a valuable service and building lasting wealth. Here, too, Lehman reflected broader trends, notably Wall Street’s drift from its core purpose of funneling capital from investors to companies.

This greedy reader yearned for more firsthand reporting and more sifting through archives. Yet Chapman has succeeded in holding up a mirror to America’s past -- and what its future might hold.

“Lehman Brothers was like a Zelig of modern American history,” he writes. “It has been present at almost all of the momentous occasions. It was indeed sad that it should be present at this one.”