"As president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and then as President Barack Obama's secretary of the Treasury, Timothy F. Geithner helped navigate the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, from boom to bust to rescue to recovery. In this memoir, he takes readers behind the scenes of the crisis, explaining the hard choices and politically unpalatable decisions he made to repair a broken financial system and prevent the collapse of the Main Street economy. How a small group of policy makers -- in a thick fog of uncertainty, with unimaginably high stakes -- helped avoid a second depression but lost the American people doing it. Geithner takes readers inside the room as the crisis began, intensified, and burned out of control, discussing the most controversial episodes of his tenures at the New York Fed and the Treasury, including the rescue of Bear Stearns; the harrowing weekend when Lehman Brothers failed; the searing crucible of the AIG rescue as well as the furor over the firm's lavish bonuses; and the battles inside the Obama administration. Geithner also describes the aftershocks of the crisis, including the administration's efforts to address high unemployment, a series of brutal political battles over deficits and debt, and the drama over Europe's repeated flirtations with the economic abyss. How America withstood the ultimate stress test of its political and financial systems"--Provided by publisher.