index index index index This was a quick, very emotional read. Although it does look to put Cantor Fitzgerald in a positive light, I believe it's correct to do so after reading this book.

Howard Lutnick faced loss, hearbreak, devastation, and choices that, hopefully, none of us will ever have to endure. I admire him for his courage, feel for his personal losses, and congratulate him on keeping his company (and, in turn, the families of those that were lost) together.

A really good read. I actually got this book from the library, so I didn't actually buy it. But I wouldn't have felt bad about buying it, after reading it. Tom Barbash's writing makes you feel like you were right there interviewing and witnessing conversations with survivors and their families. I truely felt Howard Lutnick's loss for his brother and his other familiy at work. How mind blowing is it to know that almost 700 out of 1000 employees have died, and that you have to get your company back to what it was Sept. 10, 2 days after the attacks, so the Cantor families wouldn't be just put out in the cold. And during all of this, you still have to greave for your brother, best friend, and try to attend over 600 funerals of co-workers and friends you saw every day at work. It's a shame that the media tried to make Howard an escape goat. I've actually have a very different opinion now about Connie Chung than I did before. We always think the reporter, and especially a well known one, would give the audience all the facts instead of eskuing it to one side.
Some reviewers have said it's a propaganda book--some propaganda book! The pain all these people went through are real. And I doubt that if that same reviewer was in Howard Lutnick's shoes, he would have done any better under the circumstances.
In any event, the book was very eye opening and I have more of appreciation for the survivors and their feelings. I don't think I could now ask a Sept 11 survivior their story anymore. The healing has to begin somewhere, and after 5 years, I think it has begun. When it comes to the world of finance, I'm a total idiot. I also don't spend much time thinking of such things, since I've never had enough money to invest in a savings account, much less comodities. So some of what the story is about eludes me. I can't identify with the amount of dollars being discussed, or the money these people make, but they become human because of the pain they endured and the losses they suffered. Cantor Fitzgerald suffered potential fatal harm that day and the people who struggled to pull the company out of the ashes are to be commended, as well as consoled. I had difficulty putting the book down once I started reading it. It is compelling. This is one of the few 9/11 books that should make it to your reading list.This book is fabulous. As I read each page, the writer expressed the sorrow the people felt after this inhumane tragedy. Having worked in the bond market for 25 years, I was quite shocked when I read that if "Cantor" could not open and thus subsequentyly go under, the bond market would potentially collasped! Howard, you are a stronger man than you think. Although Mr. Lutnick lost so much on this day, he made the effort to put the company back together so that our free market economy would move on and prosper in the world. In my religion we refer to people like Howard Lutnik as "angels". Mr. Lutnik this book is so well worth the read! Many thanks for what you've done for our country, economy and your employees.The reviews reproduced here are a tribute to Tom Barbash, just as Barbash wrote the book as a tribute -- and an exhoneration -- to his college buddy Howard Lutnick. Therein lies the tale. Barbash and Lutnick have artfully exploited the suffering of others -- one to write a book (and to promote a novel), the other to strike an innocent pose. It worked! Look at the reviews that blindly defend the book and charge that any criticism of it is tantamount to insensitivity toward the victims of 9/11!

This is wonderful propaganda indeed, and if I were to grade it on that scale the book would get five stars. Lutnick's obsession with looking good and Barbash's equally atrocious commitment to whitewashing exploits grief as it turns anger onto others. Sickening.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, nearly seven hundred of Cantor Fitzgerald's one thousand New York employees were at their desks on the top floors of One World Trade Center when a hijacked passenger plane struck eight floors below. Not one of them lived.

Their friends and colleagues who survived did so through random luck: They missed a train, had a business trip, took a sick day, or, in the case of CEO Howard Lutnick, dropped off his son at his first day of kindergarten.

On Top of the World tells the story not only of that tragic day but also of the complicated and emotionally charged events that followed in its wake. It is an intimate, often harrowing look at how private families processed a public atrocity, how corporate war-room strategy sessions saved the company from liquidation and the efforts of opportunistic competitors.

The book examines the media scrutiny that followed Lutnick, a man who lost his brother and so many friends, who struggled to be at once the compassionate leader the grieving families needed and the tough-minded CEO his decimated company required. Finally, On Top of the World tells the story of a group of men and women -- some of whom were just starting out, others who had succeeded well beyond their expectations -- who were building homes and raising families together, who hired relatives and friends, and the brothers and sisters of those friends. That their business has survived and even flourished -- and that an initially uneasy but ultimately significant covenant has been formed between those who lived and the families of their lost friends is a powerful testament to the ability of a community to endure.

In the attacks of September 11, 2001, 658 of New York brokerage firm Cantor Fitzgerald's 1,000 New York employees were killed. Immediately following the events, author Tom Barbash traveled to New York to profile his college friend, Cantor CEO Howard Lutnick, and chronicle the firm's struggles to stay in business and help its employees' families. The result, On Top of the World, is a compulsively readable book that is difficult to categorize. Unlike many books about the attacks, its story goes well beyond September 11 and into the following year, helping to better demonstrate the human impact of the catastrophe. And while the book ably describes the horror of the events, it is as much a business study as anything: can a company that trades $200 billion a day in commodities futures survive the sudden death of over 65 percent of its New York employees, and its New York headquarters? Cantor Fitzgerald does endure, but soon Lutnick becomes the center of a media firestorm as Connie Chung, Bill O'Reilly from Fox News, and others question the sincerity of Lutnick's public appearances and denounce his method of compensating the families of those lost. Barbash, a novelist by trade, portrays his friend's struggles sympathetically but also provides well-researched dimension to the other people involved, which helps deepen the human drama of the efforts on the part of all involved to put their lives and their company back together. --John Moe suria review reviews analysis analyze