In 1997 it seemed that things in the City could only get better. For ten years everything went according to plan. Buoyed by a strong pound and cheered on by an excitable media, the bankers became the heroes of the age. And then in the summer of 2007 everything began to collapse. Barely a year later the City was in tatters.

Greed, guile and excess - this definitive insider''s account charts an intoxicated decade and cogently reveals just how, and why, the City got it so badly wrong.

BRAIN SHOT: The definitive insider''s history of Britain''s financial services sector over the last decade, by one of our leading City commentators.

In 1997 it seemed that things in the City could only get better. For ten years everything went according to plan. Buoyed by a strong pound and cheered on by an excitable media, the bankers became the heroes of the age. And then in the summer of 2007 everything began to collapse. Barely a year later the City was in tatters.

Greed, guile and excess - this definitive insider''s account charts an intoxicated decade and cogently reveals just how, and why, the City got it so badly wrong.

BRAIN SHOT: The definitive insider''s history of Britain''s financial services sector over the last decade, by one of our leading City commentators.