"Winner of the 2018 Ralph Gomory Prize, Business History Conference" "Edward J. Balleisen, Winner of the 2018 Harold F. Williamson Prize, Business History Conference" Edward J. Balleisen is professor of history and public policy and vice provost for Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke University. He is the author of Navigating Failure: Bankruptcy and Commercial Society in Antebellum America. He lives in Durham, North Carolina. A comprehensive history...

From acclaimed director Steve James (The Interrupters), Academy Award-nominated (Best Documentary Feature, 2018) ABACUS: SMALL ENOUGH TO JAIL tells the saga of the Chinese immigrant Sung family, owners of Abacus Federal Savings of Chinatown, New York. Accused of mortgage fraud by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., Abacus becomes the only bank prosecuted after the 2008 financial crisis. The indictment and subsequent trial forces the Sung...

"On the South Side of Chicago in 1974, Linda Taylor reported a phony burglary, concocting a lie about stolen furs and jewelry. The detective who checked it out soon discovered she was a welfare cheat who drove a Cadillac to collect ill-gotten government checks. And that was just the beginning: Taylor, it turned out, was also a kidnapper, and possibly a murderer. A desperately ill teacher, a combat-traumatized Marine, an elderly woman hungry for companionship-after...

It is the autopsy of a crime, by those who tried to prevent it from within. Mortgage brokers from California and a handful of New York executives called out these fraudulent transactions. But nobody listened.