If nothing else, the Great Recession has worked wonders for the publishing industry. One can find virtually any perspective on the crisis — the big banks caused it, Bush’s policies facilitated it, Obama’s aggravated it, and so on — and, accompanying each viewpoint, a plethora of books devoted to its promulgation.

Amer Chaudri, a longtime employee of Citibank, falls into the big-bad-banks camp. His book, Diatribe: A Scathing Journey into the Heart of the Financial Corporate Culture (and Related Digressions), represents a Main Street stab at understanding Wall Street profligacy.

I’ve read several books and countless articles, over the past year or two, on the financial meltdown of 2007-2008. Some do a better job than others of navigating the complex world of derivatives trading, regulatory negligence, and underlying psychological factors. In Chaudri’s case, storytelling emerges as his vehicle of choice for the castigation of an industry. Continue reading Book review: Diatribe, by Amer Chaudri →