History's Worst Decisions

History's Worst Decisions

Author: Stephen Weir

Publisher: Allen & Unwin

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 9781740456692

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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

Author: Stephen Weir

Publisher:

Published: 2006-07

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781845375386

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Mankind's past is strewn with mistakes, colossal blunders driven by virtue as often as vice. This is an entertaining look at some monumental mishaps, from Adam and Eve's decision to eat the apple and Nero's burning down of his own city to the destruction of the Himalayan rain forest and the billions of dollars wasted on the Y2K scare.


Encyclopedia Idiotica

Encyclopedia Idiotica

Author: Stephen Weir

Publisher: B.E.S. Publishing

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780764159176

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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.


More of History's Worst Decisions

More of History's Worst Decisions

Author: Ian Whitelaw

Publisher: Pier 9

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 9781742669649

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If the road to damnation is paved with the best of intentions, then the road to disaster is paved with what, at first sight, appeared to be a smart move. More of History's Worst Decisions features a second crop of humongous historical bloopers, ordered chronologically, starting with the granddaddy of them all, our hominid ancestors' decision to come down from the trees, and categorized into military, religion, culture, politics, scandal, environment and everyone's current favourite, economics.


Profiles in Folly

Profiles in Folly

Author: Alan Axelrod

Publisher: Union Square + ORM

Published: 2012-04-03

Total Pages: 341

ISBN-13: 1402798822

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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.


The Worst Decisions... Ever!

The Worst Decisions... Ever!

Author: Stephen Weir

Publisher: Pier 9

Published: 2018-01-24

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 9781760523190

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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.


Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Blunders

Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Blunders

Author: Rob Neyer

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2007-11-01

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 1416592148

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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.