An explosive, controversial account of the collapse of RBS and the collapse of the British economy - shortlisted for FINANCIAL TIMES AND GOLDMAN SACHSBUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEARAWARD2013. When RBS collapsed and had to be bailed out by the taxpayer in the financial crisis of October 2008 it played a leading role in tipping Britain into its deepest economic downturn in seven decades. The economy shrank, bank lending froze, and hundreds of thousands lost their jobs. Living standards are still falling and Britons will be paying higher taxes for decades to pay the clean-up bill. How on earth had a small Scottish bank grown so quickly to become a global financial giant that could do such immense damage when it collapsed? Based on over 80 interviews and with access to diaries and papers kept by those at the heart of the meltdown, this is the definitive account of the RBS disaster which still casts a shadow over our economy. In Making It Happen, senior executives, board members, Treasury insiders and regulators reveal how the bank's mania for expansion led it to take enormous risks its leaders didn't understand. From the birth of the Royal Bank in 18th century Scotland, to the manic expansion under Fred Goodwin in the middle of a mad boom and culminating in the epoch-defining collapse, Making It Happenis the full, extraordinary story.

Published to mark the 30th anniversary of the financial revolution known as 'Big Bang', Crash Bang Wallop will tell the gripping story of how the changes introduced in the 1980s in the City of London transformed our world. Attitudes to money and the way we measure value and status were completely reshaped by Big Bang, and it had an extraordinary impact on politics, on style, on technology, on the class system, on questions of public ownership, and on the geography of London. Perhaps more than anything, Big Bang revolutionised the international markets, as the capital became a testing ground for financial globalisation, with huge repercussions for the global economy. The definitive insider's account of this critically important moment in modern history, Crash Bang Wallop will also explore what's next for global finance as it gets ready to undergo yet another revolution. 'Iain Martin tells it brilliantly, mixing fury-inducing narrative with an acute eye for the broader conclusion.' Observer

THE FEW, THE PROUD, THE BRAVE On Friday, November 10, 1775, the Continental Congress approved a resolution for the organization of the Corps, creating what would become the hallowed few, the proud--the Marines. Since then, the men and women of the United States Marine Corps have created the finest traditions of service and honor, and supplied a pantheon of heroes who have upheld them. In The Greatest U.S. Marine Stories Ever Told, editor Iain Martin has accumulated the Marines' most gripping true tales of service and sacrifice, from the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, to the conflicts where they serve today.

The one book you need to read if you want to understand the financial world. For fans of Michael Lewis's THE BIG SHORT and Andrew Ross Sorkin's TOO BIG TO FAIL, CRASH BANG WALLOP tells the gripping story of the most daring financial experiment in modern history. Big Bang was the dramatic moment in October 1986 when London became a testing ground for a new type of global finance. It embodied a wider revolution and the birth of a new age of fully electronic trading, transcontinental commerce and wealth creation on a titanic scale. Big Bang had huge repercussions not just for the world of finance but for culture, society, attitudes to money and value, and how ordinary people around the world lived and worked. These changes mark the moment the modern world was born. Published on the 30th anniversary of Big Bang, Crash Bang Wallop is the definitive, unflinching story of what really happened during one of the most daring and ambitious financial experiments in history. Drawing on deep archival research and exclusive new interviews, Iain Martin expertly charts the rich history of the City and explores the dramatic upheavals of the '80s and their consequences. In an afterword titled 'The Fate of the City and the Future of Money', Martin assesses what is next for the City in the wake of Brexit and on the eve of the next revolution in global finance. For anyone who wants to understand money, markets or the men and women behind it all, this timely, entertaining and revelatory work is essential reading.