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Rating: 
Summary: Insightful!
Review: Enron's story seems to have happened all at once. There was a big company with a stock price shooting for the stars and, then, suddenly there was a massive fraud, and the two things came so close together it was like hearing the explosion from a fireworks display after you've seen the light in the sky. Loren Fox's account was one of the first books about Enron and remains one of the best. The author is a skillful, diligent reporter who managed to get the story first and get it right, although Enron did not authorize his book or cooperate with him. His discussion of the company's complex, illegal accounting maneuvers is thorough and, if not quite clear, certainly complete. The book was written during the relatively early stages of the legal proceedings against the architects of the Enron fraud, so a lot of the material uncovered by Justice Department and SEC investigators was not yet available. The demerit of this is that Fox was not able to include much that is now common knowledge about Enron. However, we find that there is an advantage as well: Fox was not excessively guided or directed by common knowledge and conventional wisdom, but instead carved his own path through the thicket of Enron's weird and instructive history.
Rating:
Summary: Read in conjunction with Smith/Emshwiller
Review: Good, solid background on the history of Enron and its missteps. If you're interested in one stop shopping for an understanding of Enron the corporation from start to finish, this is the best out there so far.
Rating: 
Summary: Solid
Review: Good, solid background on the history of Enron and its missteps. If you're interested in one stop shopping for an understanding of Enron the corporation from start to finish, this is the best out there so far.
Rating: 
Summary: A "fair and balanced" treatment that can cure insomnia
Review: I've read several Enron books, from Cruver's poor product to Lynn Brewer's silly treatise, and I have to say that this one is probably more accurate and balanced than any of the others, but..... it's a real snorefest. Any author that can take a fascinating story like this and put a reader to sleep with it is not really overachieving in my view.I guess Fox couldn't get anyone significant to talk to him and maybe that held him back some, but it didn't keep Cruver and Brewer and Swartz from producing more entertaining stuff in their efforts which were similarly unencumbered by input from people who were really making it happen. Oh well, he produced a "fair and balanced" treatment that just might help you with that insomnia thing.
Rating:
Summary: Read in conjunction with Smith/Emshwiller
Review: This book, plus "24 Days," together tell you everything you need to know about the fall of Enron. This one covers the "rise" better, that one covers the "fall." What one ought to take away from both books is the realization that, despite the failure and indeed despite the evident criminality, Enron (as Fox says in his epilogue), "wasn't a complete hoax. The company deserved admiration for its early forays into trading gas and electricity, and for its plunge into the innovative financing of energy projects. It out-maneuvered the old-line energy companies to expand the use of derivatives in the energy industry. This introduced new ways of managing risk, which lowered the costs of energy-related transactions for an array of businesses." Another reviewer has said that the Fox book is a cure for insomnia. The fact is that if you need to have material on Enron MADE interesting for you by dramatic presentation, by a well-shaped narative flow, then you may have trouble with Fox, simply because he lets the material speak for itself. Sometimes it speaks in ambiguous tones.
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