History's Worst Decisions

History's Worst Decisions PDF Author: Stephen Weir
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
ISBN: 9781740456692
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
History is strewn with mistakes. Many made by well intentioned people who were bright, intelligent, capable, but just made the wrong decision.

History's Worst Decisions

History's Worst Decisions PDF Author: Stephen Weir
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
ISBN: 9781740456692
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
History is strewn with mistakes. Many made by well intentioned people who were bright, intelligent, capable, but just made the wrong decision.

Encyclopedia Idiotica

Encyclopedia Idiotica PDF Author: Stephen Weir
Publisher: B.E.S. Publishing
ISBN: 9780764159176
Category : Errors
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
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.

Profiles in Folly

Profiles in Folly PDF Author: Alan Axelrod
Publisher: Union Square + ORM
ISBN: 1402798822
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 341

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Book Description
The bestselling author of Profiles in Audacity returns with an “illuminating [and] entertaining” study of historically bad decisions (Publishers Weekly). In an engrossing anecdotal format, historian and bestselling author Alan Axelrod turns to the dark side of audacious decision-making—and explores history’s most tragic errors, the people who made them, and why they happened. While Axelrod looks at the hopelessly dumb and the overtly evil, the main focus is on smart people who had the best of intentions—but whose plans went disastrously wrong. The 35 compelling stories include the sailing of the “unsinkable” Titanic; Edward Bernays’s 1929 campaign to recruit women smokers; Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of the Nazis; Ken Lay’s deception with Enron; and even the choice to create a “New Coke” and fix what wasn’t broke. These are cautionary tales that any decision-maker can learn from—albeit with exquisite twists ranging from acerbic to horrific.

Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Blunders

Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Blunders PDF Author: Rob Neyer
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416592148
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
BLOOPER: BALL SQUIRTS THROUGH BILLY BUCKNER'S LEGS. BLUNDER: BILLY BUCKNER'S MANAGER LEFT HIM IN THE GAME. Baseball bloopers are fun; they're funny, even. A pitcher slips on the mound and his pitch sails over the backstop. An infielder camps under a pop-up...and the ball lands ten feet away. An outfielder tosses a souvenir to a fan...but that was just the second out, and runners are circling the bases (and laughing). Without these moments, the highlight reels wouldn't be nearly as entertaining. Baseball blunders, however, can be tragic, and they will leave diehard fans asking why...why...why? Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Blunders does its best to answer all those whys, exploring the worst decisions and stupidest moments of managers, general managers, owners, and even commissioners. As he did in his Big Book of Baseball Lineups, Rob Neyer provides readers with a fascinating examination of baseball's rich history, this time through the lens of the game's sometimes hilarious, often depressing, and always perplexing blunders. · Which ill-fated move cost the Chicago White Sox a great hitter and the 1919 World Series? · What was Babe Ruth thinking when he became the first (and still the only) player to end a World Series by getting caught trying to steal? · Did playing one-armed Pete Gray in 1945 cost the Browns a pennant? · How did winning a coin toss lead to the Dodgers losing the National League pennant on Bobby Thomson's "Shot Heard 'round the World"? · How damaging was the Frank Robinson-for-Milt Pappas deal, really? · Which of Red Sox manager Don Zimmer's mistakes in 1978 was the worst? · Which Yankees trade was even worse than swapping Jay Buhner for Ken Phelps? · What non-move cost Buck Showalter a job and gave Joe Torre the opportunity of a lifetime? · Game 7, 2003 ALCS: Pedro winds up to throw his 123rd pitch...what were you thinking? These are just a few of the legendary (and not-so-legendary) blunders that Neyer analyzes, always with an eye on what happened, why it happened, and how it changed the fickle course of history. And in separate chapters, Neyer also reviews some of the game's worst trades and draft picks and closely examines all the teams that fell just short of first place. Another in the series of Neyer's Big Books of baseball history, Baseball Blunders should win a place in every devoted fan's library.

Making the Best of a Bad Decision

Making the Best of a Bad Decision PDF Author: Erwin W. Lutzer
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
ISBN: 1414360827
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
Maybe you worry you’ve married the wrong person. Maybe you’re carrying the burden of a secret or have gone down a dangerous road. Maybe you’ve made a life choice that’s hurt someone else so badly you feel the relationship can never be restored. But there’s good news: you have the opportunity to clear your conscience, make things right with God and others, and get to a place of grace and new beginnings. Join pastor and bestselling author Erwin Lutzer as he shows you how to make the best of even your worst decisions and move forward into a better future.

Great Military Blunders

Great Military Blunders PDF Author: Geoffrey Regan
Publisher: Madcap
ISBN: 9780233005096
Category : Battles
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
"From ancient times to the Bay of Pigs and the Falklands War, military history has been marked as much by misjudgements and incompetence as by gallantry and glory. In this fascinating and entertaining collection, author Geoffrey Regan recounts some of the staggering stories of military blunder. His anecdotes encompass every aspect of warfare from the insanity of commanders to the provision of inadequate supplies."--Back cover.

The Worst Decisions... Ever!

The Worst Decisions... Ever! PDF Author: Stephen Weir
Publisher: Pier 9
ISBN: 9781760523190
Category : Decision making
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
History's biggest mistakes and the people who made them. Get the lowdown on some of the most significant misjudgments of all time. Revisit history's biggest miscalculations and the people who made them. From Adam and Eve to Rasputin and General Custer, meet heroes and villains from throughout the ages. Illustrated with full-colour photographs and illustrations, The Worst Decisions...Ever! takes you through the disastrous events as they unfolded from ancient to modern times. History is a catalogue of errors, and The Worst Decisions...Ever! shines a light on some of the biggest. Starting with Adam and Eve's original lapse of culinary judgment, author Stephen Weir takes you on a tour from the Trojan War to the Enron scandal, meeting such famous culprits as Cleopatra, Winston Churchill and Robert Mugabe along the way.

Fateful Choices

Fateful Choices PDF Author: Ian Kershaw
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141915048
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 596

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Book Description
In 1940 the world was on a knife-edge. The hurricane of events that marked the opening of the Second World War meant that anything could happen. For the aggressors there was no limit to their ambitions; for their victims a new Dark Age beckoned. Over the next few months their fates would be determined. In Fateful Choices Ian Kershaw re-creates the ten critical decisions taken between May 1940, when Britain chose not to surrender, and December 1941, when Hitler decided to destroy Europe’s Jews, showing how these choices would recast the entire course of history.

Thinking in Bets

Thinking in Bets PDF Author: Annie Duke
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0735216371
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
A Wall Street Journal bestseller, now in paperback. Poker champion turned decision strategist Annie Duke teaches you how to get comfortable with uncertainty and make better decisions. Even the best decision doesn't yield the best outcome every time. There's always an element of luck that you can't control, and there's always information hidden from view. So the key to long-term success (and avoiding worrying yourself to death) is to think in bets: How sure am I? What are the possible ways things could turn out? What decision has the highest odds of success? Did I land in the unlucky 10% on the strategy that works 90% of the time? Or is my success attributable to dumb luck rather than great decision making? Annie Duke, a former World Series of Poker champion turned consultant, draws on examples from business, sports, politics, and (of course) poker to share tools anyone can use to embrace uncertainty and make better decisions. For most people, it's difficult to say "I'm not sure" in a world that values and, even, rewards the appearance of certainty. But professional poker players are comfortable with the fact that great decisions don't always lead to great outcomes, and bad decisions don't always lead to bad outcomes. By shifting your thinking from a need for certainty to a goal of accurately assessing what you know and what you don't, you'll be less vulnerable to reactive emotions, knee-jerk biases, and destructive habits in your decision making. You'll become more confident, calm, compassionate, and successful in the long run.

Black Mondays

Black Mondays PDF Author: Joel D. Joseph
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description