Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco Highlight

As the shotgun marriages of America’s largest companies spurred Wall Street’s growth through the 1980s, one Wall Street firm initiated more major takeovers and created more tactical innovations than any other. First Boston, founded in 1934 and until the late 1970s a sleepy, second-tier underwriter, rocketed to the fore of major investment banks thanks largely to the brains and chutzpah of Bruce Wasserstein and Joe Perella.