The Match King

At the height of the roaring ''20s, Swedish ''migr'' Ivar Kreuger made a fortune raising money in America and loaning it to Europe in exchange for matchstick monopolies. His enterprise was a rare success story throughout the Great Depression.<br><br> Yet after Kreuger''s suicide in 1932, the true nature of his empire emerged. Driven by success to adopt ever-more perilous practices, Kreuger had turned to shell companies in tax havens, fudged accounting figures, off-balance-sheet accounting, even forgery. He created a raft of innovative financial products -- many of them precursors to instruments wreaking havoc in today''s markets. When his Wall Street empire collapsed, millions went bankrupt.<br><br> Frank Partnoy, a frequent commentator on financial disaster for the<I> Financial Times</I>, <I>New York Times</I>, NPR, and CBS''s "60 Minutes," recasts the life story of a remarkable yet forgotten genius in ways that force us to re-think our ideas about the wisdom of crowds, the invisible hand, and the free and unfettered market.