History's Worst Decisions: And the People who Made ThemAllen & Unwin, 2005 - 256 páginas The 64 A.D. burning of Rome during the reign of Nero ... Winston Churchill's ill-conceived and disastrous World War I plan to invade Turkey at Gallipoli ... the Maginot Line, built in France in 1929-34 in a foolhardy effort to prevent the feared German invasion ... the 1950s thalidomide pharmaceutical disaster that resulted in at least 20,000 babies born with deformities ... the 1989-91 misappropriation of company funds by publishing executive Robert Maxwell, and the collapse of his financial empire ... the Enron scandal of 2000 that brought down a yet larger business empire. Chronicled in these pages are stories of corporate chicanery, poor military decisions, engineering disasters, diplomatic blunders, and other appalling, large-scale mistakes that resulted in ruin and misery for countless innocent bystanders. Here are baleful tales motivated by false hope, anger, greed, pride, lust, and many other instances of erratic human behavior. A selection of approximately 50 disastrous decisions are presented, each grim account summarized in a report of roughly a half-dozen pages and enhanced with sidebars and thumbnail-sized cartoon-style illustrations. Each account opens with its cast of characters, then sets the story's background before reporting the grim details and concluding with the unhappy moral. Here is a page-turner of a book that recounts some of history's most dramatic-but also catastrophic-moments. |
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Página 13
... killing the other . And there was always that unex- plained mystery about where their children's spouses came from . The consequences of original idiocy ? Everything that follows . NOMADIC EXISTENCE . MOTIVATION anger charity envy faith ...
... killing the other . And there was always that unex- plained mystery about where their children's spouses came from . The consequences of original idiocy ? Everything that follows . NOMADIC EXISTENCE . MOTIVATION anger charity envy faith ...
Página 15
... killed most of them , leaving their homelands and families to rack and ruin , barely surviving , records suggest , raiding parties and perhaps some sort of natural disaster . There have been attempts to cast the cause of the war ...
... killed most of them , leaving their homelands and families to rack and ruin , barely surviving , records suggest , raiding parties and perhaps some sort of natural disaster . There have been attempts to cast the cause of the war ...
Página 16
... kill his own daughter . THE MOST The tale of the war barely needs repeating . Menelaus finally set sail FAMOUS with his famous fleet of 1,000 ships and 100,000 men . They laid siege to WARHORSE Troy for ten mostly fruitless years . The ...
... kill his own daughter . THE MOST The tale of the war barely needs repeating . Menelaus finally set sail FAMOUS with his famous fleet of 1,000 ships and 100,000 men . They laid siege to WARHORSE Troy for ten mostly fruitless years . The ...
Página 17
... kill Helen for her perfidy - but by the time they got back to Greece her charms had overwhelmed him again . Apparently they lived happily ever after . No , really . MENELAUS GOT HIS KINGDOM ONLY BY MARRYING HELEN , AND BARELY MANAGED TO ...
... kill Helen for her perfidy - but by the time they got back to Greece her charms had overwhelmed him again . Apparently they lived happily ever after . No , really . MENELAUS GOT HIS KINGDOM ONLY BY MARRYING HELEN , AND BARELY MANAGED TO ...
Página 18
... killed and so many cities destroyed ? Hermes : Ah , but you never saw the woman alive , Menippus , or you your- self would have said that it was excusable that they ' for a long time suffer hardship for a woman like this ' [ 18 ...
... killed and so many cities destroyed ? Hermes : Ah , but you never saw the woman alive , Menippus , or you your- self would have said that it was excusable that they ' for a long time suffer hardship for a woman like this ' [ 18 ...
Índice
9 | |
10 | |
14 | |
20 | |
27 | |
32 | |
The First Real Estate Scam | 37 |
Pope Sylvester and the End of the World | 41 |
Disease in the Crimea | 73 |
Mutiny and Beef Fat | 78 |
Thomas Austins Rabbits | 83 |
General Custer and Little Big Horn | 88 |
King Leopold and the Scramble for Africa | 94 |
Nicholas Alexandra and the Mad Monk | 100 |
Ismays Lifeboats | 105 |
The Assassination of Franz Ferdinand | 110 |
Pope Alexander and the Search for Prester John | 45 |
George Podiebrad the Last Bohemian and World Peace | 49 |
Moctezuma and the Returning God | 55 |
The Worst Deal Ever Made | 60 |
Lord North and King George Ills Tea Party | 64 |
Napoleon the March to Russiaand Frankenstein | 68 |
Winston Churchill and the Disaster at Gallipoli | 116 |
Trench Warfare General Haig and the Battle of the Somme | 120 |
Maginots Line | 126 |
The Map of Iraq | 131 |
Stalin and the Great Purge | 136 |
Outras edições - Ver tudo
History's Worst Decisions and the People who Made Them Stephen Weir Pré-visualização indisponível - 2008 |
History's Worst Decisions and the People who Made Them Stephen Weir Pré-visualização indisponível - 2009 |
Palavras e frases frequentes
Afghanistan Africa Agent Orange American anger charity envy appear army Australian battle became British caused century charity envy faith Churchill Cleopatra colonial Custer Damage death DECISIONS died disaster drug Dutch East emperor Enron envy faith gluttony Erik the Red Europe faith gluttony greed famine fight forces Franz Ferdinand French George George Podiebrad Gerald Ratner German gluttony greed hope greed hope lust Haig Hannibal Hannibal's hope lust pride idiocy India Iran island Japanese killed king Lakota land later lifeboats lust pride sloth Maginot Line Maxwell Menelaus million Moctezuma Mossadegh MOTIVATION anger charity Napoleon nations Nauru Nero nuclear Ottoman Empire percent perhaps Podiebrad political pope population Prester John pride sloth Main rabbit Rasputin Ratner region Robert Maxwell Roman Rome Russian Shenton Thomas ship Singapore sloth Main Culprit Soviet Suhrawardy thalidomide took troops tsunami Vitebsk