Dot.Con

The history of the dot-com stock rise and fall from an economics reporter and staff writer for The New Yorker.

The Internet stock bubble wasn't just about goggle-eyed day traders trying to get rich on the Nasdaq and goateed twenty-five-year-olds playing wannabe Bill Gates. It was also about an America that believed it had discovered the secret of eternal prosperity: it said something about all of us, and what we thought about ourselves, as the twenty-first century dawned.

Business journalist John Cassidy's Dot.con brings this tumultuous episode to life. Moving from the Cold War Pentagon to Silicon Valley to Wall Street and into the homes of millions of Americans, Cassidy tells the story of the great boom and bust in an authoritative and entertaining narrative. Featuring all the iconic figures of the Internet era—Marc Andreessen, Jeff Bezos, Steve Case, Alan Greenspan, and many others—and with an afterword on the aftermath of the bust—Dot.con is a panoramic and stirring account of human greed and gullibility.

“Required reading for generations of B-school students as yet unborn. . . . A marvelous book.” —Wall Street Journal

“Deserves to be the boom's standard account. It is informative, perceptive, and gracefully written.” —New Republic

“The first good book about one of capitalism's most embarrassing debacles.” —Salon.com