THE REAL DEAL By Sandy Weill and Judah S Kraushaar Warner Business Books Pp: 528 Price: Rs 680

With $1.5 trillion in assets, Citigroup is double the size of Indian economy. Yet, the man who built Citi-at least, as we now know it-struck out on his own only in 1960 with some $30,000 in borrowed capital. That's not how most entrepreneurial stories turn out. But, then, Sandy Weill is no ordinary entrepreneur. For a man who grew up as a shy kid and slow learner, Weill's act remains unsurpassed in the global banking industry. The Real Deal is the story of how Weill, inconceivably, came to lord over the biggest bank in the world.

Written in collaboration with-no, not a BusinessWeek or Fortune reporter, but-a former Merrill Lynch analyst, the book is gripping simply because of its subject. While it clearly presents Weill's life and events as the man himself saw them, the memoir is frank and direct to a large extent. Weill makes no bones about his differences with John Reed, the man behind Citicorp, with which Weill merged his own Travelers Group to create Citigroup. "Many may perceive that I had it in for John from day one of the merger, but that notion is absolutely false. It was only after seeing John's shockingly detached management style that I lost confidence in our partnership," writes Weill.

Interestingly enough, two Indians feature prominently in Weill's memoir. One is Ram Charan and the other is Victor Menezes. The former, a management consultant (or "a globe trotting corporate shrink of sorts" as Weill chooses to describe him), is brought in to sort out differences between Weill and Reed, and it's a task he performs well. It's at Charan's behest that Reed accepts the "division of labour" as suggested by Weill-an arrangement that moves Reed to e-Citi and leaves Weill in charge of Citi's businesses and financial functions. But it's the bit about Menezes that should surprise a lot of people in this country. Not only was Menezes a protégé of Reed, but he was also seen as a potential CEO at Citigroup. That, however, was not to be. Menezes, says Weill, was responsible for the $2 billion in losses that Citigroup bore following the currency meltdown in Argentina in 2001 and 2002. "The events," writes Weill, "revealed important flaws in Citigroup's management model. I gradually realised to my disappointment that Victor Menezes stood at the center of our issues." As it turns out, Menezes got the rap for downplaying the risks that Citi ran at the time of Argentina's political and economic turmoil.

It's possible that the people who feature in Weill's memoir don't see things quite the way he does, but The Real Deal is as honest and self-critical as any man writing about himself can be. In other words, it's one of those autobiographies you don't want to miss reading.

STABILITY WITH GROWTH By Joseph E Stiglitz et al Oxford University Press Pp: 339 Price: Rs 695

The hardest part of managing any economy is to ensure growth while maintaining stability. The concerns range from how much foreign capital to allow into a country's stock markets to how much fiscal deficit a government should allow in pursuit of growth to the perennial tussle between inflation and interest rates. For developing countries, which must also balance the economic imperatives with political compulsions, the challenge of doing so is harder still. What compounds the problem for developing countries is the so-called 'Washington consensus'-the policies that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund tend to impose on them. According to the Washington consensus, low inflation, fiscal discipline, privatisation and liberalisation need to be the mantras of developing countries.

Of course, not all economists or policy makers even in developed countries agree with the Washington consensus. Stability with Growth, which represents the dissenters, argues that "stabilization policy has important consequences for long-term growth and has often been implemented with adverse consequences". Making the case is a bunch of heavy-weight economists including Joseph Stiglitz and Deepak Nayyar. Their basic proposition is that developed and developing countries have different macroeconomic objectives and structures. Therefore, the focus should be on real stability and not merely price stability. It's an argument that will find many takers in developing countries.