The former FDIC chairwoman, and one of the first people to acknowledge the full risk of subprime loans, offers a unique perspective on the financial crisis.

Appointed by George W. Bush as the chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in 2006, Sheila Blair witnessed the origins of the financial crisis and in 2008 became one of the key people trying to repair the damage to our economy. Bull by the Horns is her remarkable and refreshingly honest account of that contentious time and the ensuing struggle for reform that continues to this day.

A levelheaded, pragmatic figure with a clear focus on serving the public good, Bair was often one of the few women in the room during heated discussions about the economy. Her narrative of Citibank’s attempted takeover of Wachovia is a stinging indictment of how regulators and the banks worked against the public interest at times to serve their own needs. As Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein said, “Bair is everything you’d want in a public servant: thoughtful, practical, independent-minded—a straight shooter with political savvy who can manage the details of policy without losing sight of the big picture.... She never forgets that her most important constituency isn’t the thousands of banks she regulates but the millions of Americans who use them.”

Bair is steadfast in her belief that the American public needs to understand the crisis to bring it to an end. In Bull by the Horns, she clears away the myths and reveals a critical plan for getting our financial and regulatory systems back on track.