From Silicon Valley office parks to Wall Street boardrooms, Nocera leaves no corner of American business unexamined, from the government bailout of AIG to the failed merger between Yahoo and Microsoft. By eschewing abstract economic theory to focus largely on personalities—Steve Jobs, Timothy Geithner, Rupert Murdoch—Nocera makes the often-dry business world compelling and understandable for the general reader.

Until the recent financial crisis, Nocera rarely addressed broad economic policy, preferring instead to analyze specific businesses or industries. But with financial woes making daily headlines, Nocera has lately devoted more time to looking at the big picture of macroeconomics. Though generally supportive of the federal bank bailouts, Nocera nevertheless believes Congress has been "taking all the wrong lessons" from the crisis.