And the Winner is...

The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Freres & Co. The Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book Award was announced at a gala dinner last night at the British Library in London, and William D. Cohan took home the prize. That is pretty remarkable considering that this is his debut effort, and an impressive debut it is, weighing in at a hefty 742 pages. The book tells the story of Lazard Freres & Co., where Cohan worked for six years as an associate. It is not a very flattering look at the culture on Wall Street. In fact, looking at the shortlist as a whole, no one is making a case for that status quo. Both The last Tycoon and The Black Swan take on Wall Street--though The Black Swan does so on a more intellectual than cultural level. Both Zoom and Wikinomics make the case for a paradigm shift in how we do business, and in Immigrants, Philippe Legrain argues for more open immigration policies. Even Alan Greenspan, in The Age of Turbulence, heads in directions you wouldn't expect. Taken together, these six books are (borrowing Greenspan's subtitle) "adventures in a new world". Congratulations to Mr. Cohan for winning amongst such company. Here is a good interview with him about the book, the award, and Wall Street in general.