Reviews [1992, Vol. 19, no. 2]

              The Accounting Historians Journal Vol. 19, No. 2 December 1992
REVIEWS
PATTI
A
. MILLS, EDITOR Indiana State University
REVIEWS OF BOOKS AND OTHER PUBLICATIONS
Edward J. Kane, The S & L Insurance Mess: How Did It Happen? (Washington, D.C.: The Urban Institute Press, 1989, 180 pp., $29.95 [orig.j; $10.95 [paper text edition]).
Lawrence J. White, The S & L Debacle. Public Policy Lessons for Bank and Thrift Regulation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991, 224 pp., $24.95).
Martin Mayer, The Greatest-Ever Bank Robbery. The Collapse of the Savings and Loan Industry (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1990, 352 pp., $24.95).
Continuing Research on the Savings and Loan Crisis: A Review Essay
by James Schaefer University of Evansville
The Savings and Loan crisis has been in the news since 1989. Apparently the seriousness of the situation cannot be overstated, as many have suggested that the thrift industry has been destroyed. The magnitude of the crisis has resulted in nu-merous articles and books. The topics of these writings have ranged from detailed chronologies of the entire industry (from its inception to the present) to abuses by specific people at indi-vidual thrifts.
Vol. 18, No. 1 of The Accounting Historians Journal in-cluded a review essay of three books on the crisis. Thrifts Under Siege, by R. Dan Brumbaugh [1988], analyzed the economic forces battering thrift institutions and suggested the need for dramatic reform of thrift and commercial banking. Brumbaugh was one of the first writers to devote significant attention to RAP, or regulatory accounting principles. Other People's Money [1989], by Paul Zane Pilzer, provided a discussion of the history of the industry and insight into the regulatory problems in-