Written by a veteran Wall Street Journal reporter, this is a deep dive into the world of billion-dollar traders and high-stakes crisis predictors who strive to turn extreme events into financial windfalls.
Even those unfamiliar with, or uninterested in, the oscillations of the stock market may find themselves gripped by Patterson’s account ... Patterson doesn’t come out and say what we should think of these camps: He is primarily showing us how their machinations work. But rarely does the reader see his chaos kings err, and as the author threads in more contemporary issues like the climate crisis, cryptocurrency and the war in Ukraine, we see their ideas becoming only more ascendant.
Scott Patterson... casts an engaging and accessible light on what makes these oddball savants tick, and how they make fortunes from disaster ... Chaos Kings avoids making readers feel like they’re out of their depth in a top-set maths class, and the power of the competing egos at play and the urgency of their message on everything from pandemics to the climate to the health of your life savings carry the tale.
Throughout, the author provides deft, accessible analysis and guidance. Complex economic and scientific theories lucidly rendered, even if the resulting picture is unremittingly gloomy.
