From an award-winning New York Times reporter comes the full mind-boggling true story of the lies crimes and ineptitude behind the Enron scandal that imperiled a presidency destroyed a marketplace and changed Washington and Wall Street forever. It was the corporate collapse that appeared to come out of nowhere. In late 2001 the Enron Corporation--a darling of the financial world a company whose executives were friends of presidents and the powerful--imploded virtually overnight leaving vast wreckage in its wake and sparking a criminal investigation that would last for years. Kurt Eichenwald transforms the unbelievable story of the Enron scandal into a rip-roaring narrative of epic proportions taking readers behind every closed door--from the Oval Office to the executive suites from the highest reaches of the Justice Department to the homes and bedrooms of the top officers. It is a tale of global reach--from Houston to Washington from Bombay to London from Munich to Sao Paolo--laying out the unbelievable scenes that twisted together to create this shocking true story. Eichenwald reveals never-disclosed details of a story that features a cast including George W. Bush Dick Cheney Paul O Neill Harvey Pitt Colin Powell Gray Davis Arnold Schwarzenegger Alan Greenspan Ken Lay Andy Fastow Jeff Skilling Bill Clinton Rupert Murdoch and Sumner Redstone. With its you-are-there glimpse into the secretive worlds of corporate power Conspiracy of Fools is an all-true financial and political thriller of cinematic proportions.