The Power of Stupidity

The Power of Stupidity PDF Author: Giancarlo Livraghi
Publisher: Monti & Ambrosini SRL
ISBN: 8889479183
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 238

Get Book Here

Book Description


A Military History of the Cold War, 1962–1991

A Military History of the Cold War, 1962–1991 PDF Author: Jonathan M. House
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806167742
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 654

Get Book Here

Book Description
Study of the Cold War all too often shows us the war that wasn’t fought. The reality, of course, is that many “hot” conflicts did occur, some with the great powers' weapons and approval, others without. It is this reality, and this period of quasi-war and semiconflict, that Jonathan M. House plumbs in A Military History of the Cold War, 1962–1991, a complex case study in the Clausewitzian relationship between policy and military force during a time of global upheaval and political realignment. This volume opens a new perspective on three fraught decades of Cold War history, revealing how the realities of time, distance, resources, and military culture often constrained and diverted the inclinations or policies of world leaders. In addition to the Vietnam War and nuclear confrontations between the USSR and the United States, this period saw dozens of regional wars and insurgencies fought throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Cuba, Pakistan, Indonesia, Israel, Egypt, and South Africa pursued their own goals in ways that drew the superpowers into regional disputes. Even clashes ostensibly unrelated to the politics of East-West confrontation, such as the Nigerian-Biafran conflict, the Falklands/Malvinas War, and the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, involved armed forces, weapons, and tactics developed for the larger conflict and thus come under House’s scrutiny. His study also takes up nontraditional or specialized aspects of the period, including weapons of mass destruction, civil-military relations, civil defense, and control of domestic disorders. The result is a single, integrated survey and analysis of a complex period in geopolitical history, which fills a significant gap in our knowledge of the organization, logistics, operations, and tactics involved in conflict throughout the Cold War.

Encyclopedia Idiotica

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

Get Book Here

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.

100 of the Worst Ideas in History

100 of the Worst Ideas in History PDF Author: Michael N. Smith
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
ISBN: 1402293933
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Get Book Here

Book Description
What were they thinking? Ever since Adam snacked on the forbidden fruit and was chased naked out of the Garden of Eden, mankind has bitten off a bevy of bad ideas. From skinny-dipping Presidents to toxic tooth fillings to singing pop stars who can't carry a tune, 100 of the Worst Ideas in History is a celebration of humanity's historical—and often hysterical—missteps that have started wars, sunk countries, wrecked companies, scuttled careers, lost millions, and even endangered the Earth. Discover: • How a confused chauffeur helped start World War I • Who turned down the greatest product placement opportunity in Hollywood history • How a Chicago White Sox game helped hasten the demise of disco • The toad that nearly ate Australia • The most dangerous children's game ever invented • And so much more (of so much less!) Spanning politics, pop culture, fashion, sports, technology, and more, this irreverent and witty book is packed with fun photos and sidebars, tracing how these thundering brainstorms turned into blundering brain farts-and the astonishing impacts our faux pas and foibles still have on us today.

Searching for Extraterrestrial Intelligence

Searching for Extraterrestrial Intelligence PDF Author: H. Paul Shuch
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3642131964
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 541

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book is a collection of essays written by the very scientists and engineers who have led, and continue to lead, the scientific quest known as SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Divided into three parts, the first section, ‘The Spirit of SETI Past’, written by the surviving pioneers of this then emerging discipline, reviews the major projects undertaken during the first 50 years of SETI science and the results of that research. In the second section, ‘The Spirit of SETI Present’, the present-day science and technology is discussed in detail, providing the technical background to contemporary SETI instruments, experiments, and analytical techniques, including the processing of the received signals to extract potential alien communications. In the third and final section, ‘The Spirit of SETI Future’, the book looks ahead to the possible directions that SETI will take in the next 50 years, addressing such important topics as interstellar message construction, the risks and assumptions of interstellar communications, when we might make contact, what aliens might look like and what is likely to happen in the aftermath of such a contact.

Shaping the North Through Multimodal and Intermedial Interaction

Shaping the North Through Multimodal and Intermedial Interaction PDF Author: Juha-Pekka Alarauhio
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030991040
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 261

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book emphasizes humans interacting and participating in making meaning with multimodal resources and relating experience via intermedial means. The contributors explore diverse ways of mediating work, education, arts, and culture, and ask how interactive participation involves experiences of the north either as a physical setting or a more abstract cultural condition that shapes the activity. The ten chapters engage with topical theoretical debate and put novel methodology to test, providing essential reading for scholars and students in this rich and rapidly developing global field of research.

Custer, the Seventh Cavalry, and the Little Big Horn

Custer, the Seventh Cavalry, and the Little Big Horn PDF Author: Mike O'Keefe
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806188146
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 946

Get Book Here

Book Description
Since the shocking news first broke in 1876 of the Seventh Cavalry’s disastrous defeat at the Little Big Horn, fascination with the battle—and with Lieutenant George Armstrong Custer—has never ceased. Widespread interest in the subject has spawned a vast outpouring of literature, which only increases with time. This two-volume bibliography of Custer literature is the first to be published in some twenty-five years and the most complete ever assembled. Drawing on years of research, Michael O’Keefe has compiled entries for roughly 3,000 books and 7,000 articles and pamphlets. Covering both nonfiction and fiction (but not juvenile literature), the bibliography focuses on events beginning with Custer’s tenure at West Point during the 1850s and ending with the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890. Included within this span are Custer’s experiences in the Civil War and in Texas, the 1873 Yellowstone and 1874 Black Hills expeditions, the Great Sioux War of 1876–77, and the Seventh Cavalry’s pursuit of the Nez Perces in 1877. The literature on Custer, the Battle of the Little Big Horn, and the Seventh Cavalry touches the entire American saga of exploration, conflict, and settlement in the West, including virtually all Plains Indian tribes, the frontier army, railroading, mining, and trading. Hence this bibliography will be a valuable resource for a broad audience of historians, librarians, collectors, and Custer enthusiasts.

The Popular Encyclopedia

The Popular Encyclopedia PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 1022

Get Book Here

Book Description


BUFFETS AND BREADLINES

BUFFETS AND BREADLINES PDF Author: KIMON VALASKAKIS
Publisher: Author House
ISBN: 1481733338
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 309

Get Book Here

Book Description
Conventional wisdom claims that the world is going broke, and that we must tighten our belts and accept poverty as the new normal. In a direct challenge to this view, Kimon Valaskakis, Professor of Economics, Futurist and former Canadian Ambassador to the OECD, claims the very opposite. Never in the history of civilization has Humanity been as rich as today. With an 70 trillion in world economic output for only 7 billion inhabitants of Planet Earth, there is a potential annual income of $10, 000 per person. Instead, what we see is the juxtaposition of what he calls Buffets and Breadlines. A small percentage of the world population enjoys all-you-can-waste economic buffets, while the rest may be increasingly condemned to 1930's style breadlines. This gross mismanagement of the earth's resources masquerades as 'scarcity', which is then used to justify harsh austerity policies hurting everyone except the very rich. If the analysis of this first book is indeed valid, much of present public policy is doomed to fail and bound to lead to counter-productive results for the world economy. Couched in a new, yet old, genre of a philosophic play, emulating the Socratic dialogues, this book, part of a trilogy, depicts the deliberations of two dozen fictional characters who meet in Corfu, to 'change the world in three weeks.' The first book chronicles the findings of their first week, in colorful and dialectal style, with opposing ideas and opinions expressed, though in the friendly conviviality of a beautiful beach resort. The second and third books, which have yet to be published, will identify desirable alternatives to the status quo, and ultimately how do we get from here to there.

The Publishers Weekly

The Publishers Weekly PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : American literature
Languages : en
Pages : 1016

Get Book Here

Book Description