The Icarus Syndrome PDF Download
Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download The Icarus Syndrome PDF full book. Access full book title The Icarus Syndrome by Peter Beinart. Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.
Author: Peter Beinart
Publisher: Melbourne Univ. Publishing
ISBN: 052285804X
Category : Ambition
Languages : en
Pages : 494
Get Book Here
Book Description
In The Icarus Syndrome, Peter Beinart tells a tale as old as the Greeks - a story about the seductions of success. Beinart describes Washington on the eve of three wars - World War I, Vietnam and Iraq - three moments when American leaders decided they could remake the world in their image. Each time, leading intellectuals declared that history was over, and the spread of democracy was inevitable. Each time, a president held the nation in the palm of his hand. And each time, a war conceived in arrogance brought untold tragedy. In dazzling colour, Beinart portrays three extraordinary generations: the progressives who took America into World War I, led by Woodrow Wilson, the lonely preacher's son who became the closest thing to a political messiah the world had ever seen. The Camelot intellectuals who took America into Vietnam, led by Lyndon Johnson, who lay awake night after night shaking with fear that his countrymen considered him weak. And George W. Bush and the post-cold war neoconservatives, the romantic bullies who believed they could bludgeon the Middle East and liberate it at the same time. Like Icarus, each of these generations crafted 'wings' - a theory about America's relationship to the world. They flapped carefully at first, but gradually lost their inhibitions until, giddy with success, they flew into the sun. But every era also brought new leaders and thinkers who found wisdom in pain. They reconciled American optimism - our belief that anything is possible - with the realities of a world that will never fully bend to our will. In their struggles lie the seeds of American renewal today. Based on years of research, The Icarus Syndrome is a provocative and strikingly original account of hubris in the American century - and how we learn from the tragedies that result.
Author: Peter Beinart
Publisher: Melbourne Univ. Publishing
ISBN: 052285804X
Category : Ambition
Languages : en
Pages : 494
Get Book Here
Book Description
In The Icarus Syndrome, Peter Beinart tells a tale as old as the Greeks - a story about the seductions of success. Beinart describes Washington on the eve of three wars - World War I, Vietnam and Iraq - three moments when American leaders decided they could remake the world in their image. Each time, leading intellectuals declared that history was over, and the spread of democracy was inevitable. Each time, a president held the nation in the palm of his hand. And each time, a war conceived in arrogance brought untold tragedy. In dazzling colour, Beinart portrays three extraordinary generations: the progressives who took America into World War I, led by Woodrow Wilson, the lonely preacher's son who became the closest thing to a political messiah the world had ever seen. The Camelot intellectuals who took America into Vietnam, led by Lyndon Johnson, who lay awake night after night shaking with fear that his countrymen considered him weak. And George W. Bush and the post-cold war neoconservatives, the romantic bullies who believed they could bludgeon the Middle East and liberate it at the same time. Like Icarus, each of these generations crafted 'wings' - a theory about America's relationship to the world. They flapped carefully at first, but gradually lost their inhibitions until, giddy with success, they flew into the sun. But every era also brought new leaders and thinkers who found wisdom in pain. They reconciled American optimism - our belief that anything is possible - with the realities of a world that will never fully bend to our will. In their struggles lie the seeds of American renewal today. Based on years of research, The Icarus Syndrome is a provocative and strikingly original account of hubris in the American century - and how we learn from the tragedies that result.
Author: Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030626016
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 237
Get Book Here
Book Description
At this critical junction in the history of humankind, leaders that are proficient in magical thinking aren’t going to solve our problems. Creating alternative realities is not the answer. We need a very different kind of leadership—leaders who can resist the calls of regression and whose outlook is firmly based in reality. We need leaders who analyze and draw conclusions from, or use their own experiences as a development tool, face their strengths and weaknesses, and critique their own experiences in order to build new understandings. In this very personal and entertaining book, Manfred Kets de Vries, one of the “gurus” in the field of leadership studies offers his thoughts on leadership and life, reflections written for executives and the people who deal with them. As a psychoanalyst and leadership professor let loose in the world of renowned global organizations—as a passionate educator and scholar, or just a human being at the receiving end of heart-rending emails—he examines the pitfalls of leadership and the challenges for the professionals who work with senior executives in today’s AI-focused world. He points out why leaders can derail, and what steps they can take to prevent this from happening. Ultimately, this book encourages you to “Know yourself,” but makes no bones about the challenge it represents. Understanding our “inner theatre” will always be an uphill struggle. Kets de Vries points out why deep dives into our inner world are always fraught with many anxieties. Included in the many subjects covered by the author are the loneliness of command, the management of disappointment, the destructive role of greed, the impact of stubbornness, the role of storytelling, the importance of wellness, and the role of corporate culture. In addition, the book addresses the important topic of how to create great teams and best places to work. Furthermore, the book touches on endings– the ending of our career and the growing realization of the inevitable ending of our life. As time grows short, Kets de Vries emphasizes that we have no time to lose in dealing with our anxieties, regrets, and the things we spend much of our life determined not to see. Taking a deep dive into self-knowledge requires courage and support, and he is here to guide you through it.
Author: A. Furnham
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1403990034
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 183
Get Book Here
Book Description
This book takes a very critical look at management fads and fashions and shows that many do not stand up to scrutiny. It is believed for example that coaching is successful. What is the evidence for this? Selection procedures at interviews result in the right candidate being selected. Again what is the evidence? The author shows that many fads and fashions in management are short lived and based upon flimsy evidence, yet enjoy a period of support. His book will be an important tool for managers who want to understand the substance and rigour or lack of it associated with modern management ideas and concepts.
Author: Joan G. Creager
Publisher: Virtualbookworm Publishing
ISBN: 9781589393745
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 190
Get Book Here
Book Description
Retired or soon to retire? Want a glimpse of a less hurried, more reflective life? Joan Creager's Life in a Slower Lane shows you what it feels like to be retired-its joys and frustrations, its pains and pleasures. Essays in this collection reflect on retirement and on personal and family experiences over the years. Some essays look at today's challenging problems from the perspective of a retiree. Essay topics include: finding the right place to retire, getting a Medicare card, dealing with a hip replacement that went awry, making a granddaughter's wedding dress, growing up WASP, battling a groundhog named Monax, moving-in-day on a college campus, trials of exercise, concerns for a gay son, garden fever, how clocks rule our lives, global warming, overpopulation, right to die, and living sustainably. The collection ends with the author's fantasy on selling her kitchen and recipes for soups that can be made in her scaled-down kitchenette.
Author: David L. Roll
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190218177
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 537
Get Book Here
Book Description
"The best biography of a crucial figure at pivotal moment in American history since Robert E. Sherwood's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1948 classic, Roosevelt and Hopkins." --Steven Casey, author of Cautious Crusade: Franklin D. Roosevelt, American Public Opinion and the War against Nazi Germany, 1941-1945
Author: Robert M. Farley
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813144973
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 331
Get Book Here
Book Description
The United States needs airpower, but does it need an air force? In Grounded, Robert M. Farley persuasively argues that America should end the independence of the United States Air Force (USAF) and divide its assets and missions between the United States Army and the United States Navy. In the wake of World War I, advocates of the Air Force argued that an organizationally independent air force would render other military branches obsolete. These boosters promised clean, easy wars: airpower would destroy cities beyond the reach of the armies and would sink navies before they could reach the coast. However, as Farley demonstrates, independent air forces failed to deliver on these promises in World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the first Gulf War, the Kosovo conflict, and the War on Terror. They have also had perverse effects on foreign and security policy, as politicians have been tempted by the vision of devastating airpower to initiate otherwise ill-considered conflicts. The existence of the USAF also produces turf wars with the Navy and the Army, leading to redundant expenditures, nonsensical restrictions on equipment use, and bad tactical decisions. Farley does not challenge the idea that aircraft represent a critical component of America's defenses; nor does he dispute that—especially now, with the introduction of unmanned aerial vehicles—airpower is necessary to modern warfare. Rather, he demonstrates that the efficient and wise use of airpower does not require the USAF as presently constituted. An intriguing scholarly polemic, Grounded employs a wide variety of primary and secondary source materials to build its case that the United States should now correct its 1947 mistake of having created an independent air force.
Author: Lamont C. Colucci
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1548
Get Book Here
Book Description
This two-volume set provides a chronological view of the foreign policy/national security doctrines of key American presidents from Washington to Obama, framed by commentary on the historical context for each, discussions of major themes, and examinations of the lasting impact of these policies. The National Security Doctrines of the American Presidency: How They Shape our Present and Future provides a chronological examination of the foreign policy and national security doctrines of key American presidents from Washington to Obama, covering everything from our missionary zeal and our pursuit of open navigation of the seas, to our involvement in the ongoing political and military conflicts in the Middle East. It addresses the multiple sources behind the doctrines: real, rhetorical, and ideological. Arranged chronologically, each chapter offers commentary on the historical evolution of these doctrines, identifies the major themes, and highlights unique revelations. Ideal for universities, colleges, libraries, academics, classroom teachers, policy makers, and the educated electorate, this two-volume set represents a compendium of national security doctrines that explains how these first doctrines have constrained, restrained, and guided every American president regardless of party, providing comprehensive information that cannot be found in any other single source. Further, the work presents the reader with examples and explanations of precisely how these doctrines from long ago as well as those from recent history directly affect our present and future.
Author: Keith Fleming
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442669047
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 485
Get Book Here
Book Description
One of Canada’s most outspoken and respected advocates of internationalism during the early Cold War, John King Gordon had a remarkably eclectic professional life. Keith R. Fleming’s biography of Gordon explores the man’s many careers, from his start as a Manitoba clergyman in the 1920s to his work as a United Nations field officer in Korea, the Middle East, and the Congo. In “The World Is Our Parish,” Fleming traces how Gordon’s passion for social reform and humanitarianism led him to become a clergyman, a political activist, a journalist, a professor, and one of Canada’s leading advocates of liberal internationalism in the years after World War Two. An exceptional biography of an extraordinary but little-known Canadian, “The World Is Our Parish” uses Gordon’s professional and intellectual journey to reveal the confluence of liberal Christianity, social democracy, and internationalism in Canadian politics and thought.
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Military art and science
Languages : en
Pages : 496
Get Book Here
Book Description
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Military art and science
Languages : en
Pages : 492
Get Book Here
Book Description
