Bryan Burrough Books
Bryan Burrough is an American author and journalist known for his work with The Wall Street Journal and Vanity Fair.
Known for: Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco, Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of an American Myth
Books by Bryan Burrough
Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco
Barbarians at the Gate is one of the great business narratives of the modern era: a gripping, deeply reported account of the battle to buy RJR Nabisco in the late 1980s, when leveraged buyouts, junk b...
Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of an American Myth
Some national legends survive not because they are fully true, but because they are emotionally useful. Forget the Alamo examines one of America’s most cherished regional myths and asks a disruptive q...
Key Insights from Bryan Burrough
The Corporate Jungle of the 1980s
Every financial era creates its own mythology, and the 1980s myth was that debt, if used boldly enough, could unlock hidden corporate value. Barbarians at the Gate begins in a decade shaped by deregulation, aggressive dealmaking, and the rise of Wall Street as a cultural force. Leveraged buyouts, on...
From Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco
The Making of a Conglomerate
Big companies often look strongest just before their contradictions become impossible to ignore. RJR Nabisco was formed by combining R.J. Reynolds, a tobacco powerhouse with immense cash generation, and Nabisco, a famous food business built on consumer brands. On paper, the merger promised diversifi...
From Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco
The Rise of Ross Johnson
Charisma in leadership is most dangerous when it disguises weak discipline as visionary confidence. Ross Johnson, the CEO at the center of Barbarians at the Gate, was witty, socially gifted, and highly skilled at navigating elite corporate circles. He projected ease in situations where others felt p...
From Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco
The Spark Behind the Buyout
The most explosive corporate battles often begin with a simple, seductive idea: why let public shareholders own the upside when management can take it for itself? Ross Johnson’s proposal to pursue a leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco set the entire drama in motion. His pitch rested on a logic common in...
From Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco
When the Bidding War Erupts
Competition reveals character, and in the RJR Nabisco battle it revealed how quickly finance can shift from analysis to combat. Once Johnson’s buyout proposal became public, rival bidders rushed in, most notably Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, or KKR. What followed was a breathtaking contest of escalating ...
From Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco
Greed, Loyalty, and Fiduciary Duty
Corporate governance sounds abstract until millions of dollars expose who people really believe they serve. One of the book’s deepest themes is the collision between greed, personal loyalty, and fiduciary duty. Directors owed shareholders the best outcome. Executives claimed to care about the compan...
From Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco
About Bryan Burrough
Bryan Burrough is an American author and journalist known for his work with The Wall Street Journal and Vanity Fair.
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Bryan Burrough is an American author and journalist known for his work with The Wall Street Journal and Vanity Fair.
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