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| biggest idiots in history: The Incredibly Stupid Adventures of the Incredibly Stupid Stuper Man! Patrick C. F. Wise, 2011-08-03 In a quite possibly not-so distant future, the universe is wreathed in utter chaos. An intergalactic tyrant by the name of King Brainiac, seeking the ultimate power contained within the mythical Gem of the Universe, attacks and destroys the peaceful planet, Stupin, home to the Stupinians, a people who are really, REALLY stupid. In a ginormous twist of fate, however, a young Stupinian and his dog escape from the destruction with the Gem in tow. Landing on the planet Earth, these new heroes, Stuper Man and Stuper Dog, dedicate themselves to defending the Gem from Brainiac and his evil forces. Little do they realize that there is much more to the story than they know: a sinister conspiracy, an ancient bloodline, and a dark power so fearsome that it could engulf the entire universe and still have enough room for dessert. The Dumbbell Duo may not have much of it, but through their trials they prove that knowledge has been, is, and will always be the most powerful weapon that you can wield. The fate of the universe is in his hands...feel pity for the universe. |
| biggest idiots in history: The Jewish Threat Joseph W. Bendersky, W Bendersky, 2008-01-07 Very little has been written about America's own history of anti-Semitism. In this shocking book, the first documented examination of anti-Semitism in an American governmental institution, Joseph Bendersky shows that such racism permeated the highest ranks of the U.S. military throughout the past century, having a very real effect on policy decisions. Through ten years of research in more than thirty-five archives, the author uncovered irrefutable evidence of endemic and virulent anti-Semitism throughout the Army Corps from the turn of the century right up to the 1970s. This fully developed and clearly articulated perspective had a direct effect on policy discussions and decisions, affecting such matters as immigration, refugees, military strategy, and the establishment of Israel. Written with novelistic intensity and attention to intriguing detail, The Jewish Threat forces us to revise some of our cherished notions about our country and its most revered leaders. |
| biggest idiots in history: Why Business People Speak Like Idiots Brian Fugere, Chelsea Hardaway, Jon Warshawsky, 2005-02-22 There is a fundamental disconnection between the way business people speak and real people communicate. From advertisers, big business and CEOs - the blather is coming at us in waves. The International Language of Business is no longer English - it's gobbledygook. The authors blindly discovered the enormity of the problem in June 2003 with the launch of Bullfighter, an anti-jargon software tool. But jargon is just one symptom in a larger problem afflicting corporate communications today: the wholesale inability to connect with an audience. In the form of admirably straight-talk, we discover how to avoid the 'obscurity trap', 'the anonymity trap', the 'hard-sell trap' and most importantly, 'the tedium trap'. In this witty and practical new book readers are given all the tools they need to fight the 'spin' and learn to speak like the rest of us. |
| biggest idiots in history: Devil Take the Hindmost Edward Chancellor, 2000-06-01 A lively, original, and challenging history of stock market speculation from the 17th century to present day. Is your investment in that new Internet stock a sign of stock market savvy or an act of peculiarly American speculative folly? How has the psychology of investing changed—and not changed—over the last five hundred years? In Devil Take the Hindmost, Edward Chancellor traces the origins of the speculative spirit back to ancient Rome and chronicles its revival in the modern world: from the tulip scandal of 1630s Holland, to “stockjobbing” in London's Exchange Alley, to the infamous South Sea Bubble of 1720, which prompted Sir Isaac Newton to comment, “I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.” Here are brokers underwriting risks that included highway robbery and the “assurance of female chastity”; credit notes and lottery tickets circulating as money; wise and unwise investors from Alexander Pope and Benjamin Disraeli to Ivan Boesky and Hillary Rodham Clinton. From the Gilded Age to the Roaring Twenties, from the nineteenth century railway mania to the crash of 1929, from junk bonds and the Japanese bubble economy to the day-traders of the Information Era, Devil Take the Hindmost tells a fascinating story of human dreams and folly through the ages. |
| biggest idiots in history: On Tyranny Timothy Snyder, 2017-02-28 #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A “bracing” (Vox) guide for surviving and resisting America’s turn towards authoritarianism, from “a rising public intellectual unafraid to make bold connections between past and present” (The New York Times) “Timothy Snyder reasons with unparalleled clarity, throwing the past and future into sharp relief. He has written the rare kind of book that can be read in one sitting but will keep you coming back to help regain your bearings.”—Masha Gessen The Founding Fathers tried to protect us from the threat they knew, the tyranny that overcame ancient democracy. Today, our political order faces new threats, not unlike the totalitarianism of the twentieth century. We are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. On Tyranny is a call to arms and a guide to resistance, with invaluable ideas for how we can preserve our freedoms in the uncertain years to come. |
| biggest idiots in history: Useful Idiots Mona Charen, 2003-01-01 The author attacks American liberals as naive and disingenuous in their dealings with the world, accusing them of rewriting history to portray themselves as Cold Warriors along with conservatives. |
| biggest idiots in history: Command Of The Air General Giulio Douhet, 2014-08-15 In the pantheon of air power spokesmen, Giulio Douhet holds center stage. His writings, more often cited than perhaps actually read, appear as excerpts and aphorisms in the writings of numerous other air power spokesmen, advocates-and critics. Though a highly controversial figure, the very controversy that surrounds him offers to us a testimonial of the value and depth of his work, and the need for airmen today to become familiar with his thought. The progressive development of air power to the point where, today, it is more correct to refer to aerospace power has not outdated the notions of Douhet in the slightest In fact, in many ways, the kinds of technological capabilities that we enjoy as a global air power provider attest to the breadth of his vision. Douhet, together with Hugh “Boom” Trenchard of Great Britain and William “Billy” Mitchell of the United States, is justly recognized as one of the three great spokesmen of the early air power era. This reprint is offered in the spirit of continuing the dialogue that Douhet himself so perceptively began with the first edition of this book, published in 1921. Readers may well find much that they disagree with in this book, but also much that is of enduring value. The vital necessity of Douhet’s central vision-that command of the air is all important in modern warfare-has been proven throughout the history of wars in this century, from the fighting over the Somme to the air war over Kuwait and Iraq. |
| biggest idiots in history: Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations Al Franken, 1999 Move over P.J. O'Rourke! From Al Franken, America's premier liberal satirist, comes a hilarious homage to the wonderful, awful, and always absurd American political process that skewers a whole new crop of presidential hopefuls--just in time for the 1996 presidential election. (Franken is) responsible in part for some of the most brilliant political satire of our time.--John Podhoretz, New York Post. |
| biggest idiots in history: A Pickle for the Knowing Ones Timothy Dexter, 1848 |
| biggest idiots in history: Lost to the West Lars Brownworth, 2010-06-01 Filled with unforgettable stories of emperors, generals, and religious patriarchs, as well as fascinating glimpses into the life of the ordinary citizen, Lost to the West reveals how much we owe to the Byzantine Empire that was the equal of any in its achievements, appetites, and enduring legacy. For more than a millennium, Byzantium reigned as the glittering seat of Christian civilization. When Europe fell into the Dark Ages, Byzantium held fast against Muslim expansion, keeping Christianity alive. Streams of wealth flowed into Constantinople, making possible unprecedented wonders of art and architecture. And the emperors who ruled Byzantium enacted a saga of political intrigue and conquest as astonishing as anything in recorded history. Lost to the West is replete with stories of assassination, mass mutilation and execution, sexual scheming, ruthless grasping for power, and clashing armies that soaked battlefields with the blood of slain warriors numbering in the tens of thousands. |
| biggest idiots in history: The Dumbest Generation Mark Bauerlein, 2008-05-15 This shocking, surprisingly entertaining romp into the intellectual nether regions of today's underthirty set reveals the disturbing and, ultimately, incontrovertible truth: cyberculture is turning us into a society of know-nothings. The Dumbest Generation is a dire report on the intellectual life of young adults and a timely warning of its impact on American democracy and culture. For decades, concern has been brewing about the dumbed-down popular culture available to young people and the impact it has on their futures. But at the dawn of the digital age, many thought they saw an answer: the internet, email, blogs, and interactive and hyper-realistic video games promised to yield a generation of sharper, more aware, and intellectually sophisticated children. The terms “information superhighway” and “knowledge economy” entered the lexicon, and we assumed that teens would use their knowledge and understanding of technology to set themselves apart as the vanguards of this new digital era. That was the promise. But the enlightenment didn’t happen. The technology that was supposed to make young adults more aware, diversify their tastes, and improve their verbal skills has had the opposite effect. According to recent reports from the National Endowment for the Arts, most young people in the United States do not read literature, visit museums, or vote. They cannot explain basic scientific methods, recount basic American history, name their local political representatives, or locate Iraq or Israel on a map. The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future is a startling examination of the intellectual life of young adults and a timely warning of its impact on American culture and democracy. Over the last few decades, how we view adolescence itself has changed, growing from a pitstop on the road to adulthood to its own space in society, wholly separate from adult life. This change in adolescent culture has gone hand in hand with an insidious infantilization of our culture at large; as adolescents continue to disengage from the adult world, they have built their own, acquiring more spending money, steering classrooms and culture towards their own needs and interests, and now using the technology once promoted as the greatest hope for their futures to indulge in diversions, from MySpace to multiplayer video games, 24/7. Can a nation continue to enjoy political and economic predominance if its citizens refuse to grow up? Drawing upon exhaustive research, personal anecdotes, and historical and social analysis, The Dumbest Generation presents a portrait of the young American mind at this critical juncture, and lays out a compelling vision of how we might address its deficiencies. The Dumbest Generation pulls no punches as it reveals the true cost of the digital age—and our last chance to fix it. |
| biggest idiots in history: Encyclopedia Idiotica Stephen Weir, 2005 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. |
| biggest idiots in history: Hoosiers and the American Story Madison, James H., Sandweiss, Lee Ann, 2014-10 A supplemental textbook for middle and high school students, Hoosiers and the American Story provides intimate views of individuals and places in Indiana set within themes from American history. During the frontier days when Americans battled with and exiled native peoples from the East, Indiana was on the leading edge of America’s westward expansion. As waves of immigrants swept across the Appalachians and eastern waterways, Indiana became established as both a crossroads and as a vital part of Middle America. Indiana’s stories illuminate the history of American agriculture, wars, industrialization, ethnic conflicts, technological improvements, political battles, transportation networks, economic shifts, social welfare initiatives, and more. In so doing, they elucidate large national issues so that students can relate personally to the ideas and events that comprise American history. At the same time, the stories shed light on what it means to be a Hoosier, today and in the past. |
| biggest idiots in history: World History For Dummies Peter Haugen, 2022-01-06 Discover how the modern world came to be with this easy-to-follow and up-to-date history companion Want to get a taste of the entirety of human history in a single book? With World History For Dummies, you'll get an overview of the history of, well, everything, from the Neanderthal experience to the latest historical developments of the 21st century. Re-live history from your armchair as you ride into battle alongside Roman generals, prepare Egyptian pharaohs for the afterlife, and learn from the great Greek poets and philosophers. Written in the easy-to-digest style the For Dummies series is famous for, you'll discover: How religion, philosophy, and science shaped, and were shaped by, the great figures of history The human consequences of warfare, from historical battles to more modern conflicts from the 20th century What's influencing events in the 21st century, from climate change to new regimes and economies World History For Dummies is the perfect gift for the lifelong learner who wants to brush up on their world history knowledge. It's also an indispensable resource for AP World History students looking for a supplemental reference to help them with their studies. |
| biggest idiots in history: A Critical History of History in Moving Pictures John N. Dunbar Ph.D., 2014-03-17 In the first book of its kind in the English language historian Dr. John Dunbar provides an overview of attempts throughout film history to put historical topics on screen in the United States and Great Britain. The earliest attempts were biographic films about famous people and some great epic films such as Gone With the Wind that were not claimed to be accurate histories of a period. World War Two paved the way for post war developments through the evolution of the documentary film that were often accurate portrayals of events in the war. After WW 2 a number of social, political, technical and economic developments opened the way for the making of historically accurate films. The dissolution of the Studio System in Hollywood, the disappearance of film censor boards, the arrival of television and later the internet, the appearance of greater market segments than those traditionally served by motion picture all opened up market opportunities for films of greater historical accuracy than had traditionally been available. The emergence of film makers and production companies dedicated to the accurate telling of history now engages the resources of professional historians in the making of films of unequalled accuracy. As items in the modern world of media literacy and political discourse, these films play an important role in the sustenance of the open society in which the ideals of the European Enlightenment can be continually realized. |
| biggest idiots in history: Fall of Giants Ken Follett, 2011-08-30 Ken Follett’s magnificent historical epic begins as five interrelated families move through the momentous dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for women’s suffrage. A thirteen-year-old Welsh boy enters a man’s world in the mining pits. . . . An American law student rejected in love finds a surprising new career in Woodrow Wilson’s White House. . . . A housekeeper for the aristocratic Fitzherberts takes a fateful step above her station, while Lady Maud Fitzherbert herself crosses deep into forbidden territory when she falls in love with a German spy. . . . And two orphaned Russian brothers embark on radically different paths when their plan to emigrate to America falls afoul of war, conscription, and revolution. From the dirt and danger of a coal mine to the glittering chandeliers of a palace, from the corridors of power to the bedrooms of the mighty, Fall of Giants takes us into the inextricably entangled fates of five families—and into a century that we thought we knew, but that now will never seem the same again. . . . |
| biggest idiots in history: Open Veins of Latin America Eduardo Galeano, 1997-01-01 Since its U.S. debut a quarter-century ago, this brilliant text has set a new standard for historical scholarship of Latin America. It is also an outstanding political economy, a social and cultural narrative of the highest quality, and perhaps the finest description of primitive capital accumulation since Marx. Rather than chronology, geography, or political successions, Eduardo Galeano has organized the various facets of Latin American history according to the patterns of five centuries of exploitation. Thus he is concerned with gold and silver, cacao and cotton, rubber and coffee, fruit, hides and wool, petroleum, iron, nickel, manganese, copper, aluminum ore, nitrates, and tin. These are the veins which he traces through the body of the entire continent, up to the Rio Grande and throughout the Caribbean, and all the way to their open ends where they empty into the coffers of wealth in the United States and Europe. Weaving fact and imagery into a rich tapestry, Galeano fuses scientific analysis with the passions of a plundered and suffering people. An immense gathering of materials is framed with a vigorous style that never falters in its command of themes. All readers interested in great historical, economic, political, and social writing will find a singular analytical achievement, and an overwhelming narrative that makes history speak, unforgettably. This classic is now further honored by Isabel Allende's inspiring introduction. Universally recognized as one of the most important writers of our time, Allende once again contributes her talents to literature, to political principles, and to enlightenment. |
| biggest idiots in history: Just A Few Things That Need To Be Said Thomas E. Gray, 2019-11-09 Just A Few Things That Need To Be Said is an ordinary American's commentary on today's society. Through both serious evaluation and humor, the author analyzes many current day issues such as the effect of digital technology on our culture, political correctness, political corruption, and the failure of our education system. On a lighter note, the author discusses the overall decline in basic manners and decorum in America. No group of people escapes his commentary. Some people will be amused while others will be offended by the author's often direct and honest assessment of our society. |
| biggest idiots in history: Evil Geniuses Kurt Andersen, 2020-08-11 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • When did America give up on fairness? The author of Fantasyland tells the epic history of how America decided that big business gets whatever it wants, only the rich get richer, and nothing should ever change—and charts a way back to the future. “Essential, absorbing . . . a graceful, authoritative guide . . . a radicalized moderate’s moderate case for radical change.”—The New York Times Book Review During the twentieth century, America managed to make its economic and social systems both more and more fair and more and more prosperous. A huge, secure, and contented middle class emerged. All boats rose together. But then the New Deal gave way to the Raw Deal. Beginning in the early 1970s, by means of a long war conceived of and executed by a confederacy of big business CEOs, the superrich, and right-wing zealots, the rules and norms that made the American middle class possible were undermined and dismantled. The clock was turned back on a century of economic progress, making greed good, workers powerless, and the market all-powerful while weaponizing nostalgia, lifting up an oligarchy that served only its own interests, and leaving the huge majority of Americans with dwindling economic prospects and hope. Why and how did America take such a wrong turn? In this deeply researched and brilliantly woven cultural, economic, and political chronicle, Kurt Andersen offers a fresh, provocative, and eye-opening history of America’s undoing, naming names, showing receipts, and unsparingly assigning blame—to the radical right in economics and the law, the high priests of high finance, a complacent and complicit Establishment, and liberal “useful idiots,” among whom he includes himself. Only a writer with Andersen’s crackling energy, deep insight, and ability to connect disparate dots and see complex systems with clarity could make such a book both intellectually formidable and vastly entertaining. And only a writer of Andersen’s vision could reckon with our current high-stakes inflection point, and show the way out of this man-made disaster. |
| biggest idiots in history: To Lose a Battle Alistair Horne, 2007-06-28 In 1940, the German army fought and won an extraordinary battle with France in six weeks of lightning warfare. With the subtlety and compulsion of a novel, Horne’s narrative shifts from minor battlefield incidents to high military and political decisions, stepping far beyond the confines of military history to form a major contribution to our understanding of the crises of the Franco-German rivalry. To Lose a Battle is the third part of the trilogy beginning with The Fall of Paris and continuing with The Price of Glory (already available in Penguin). |
| biggest idiots in history: Accidental Heroes Danielle Steel, 2018-03-20 #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A decorated former Air Force pilot. A pregnant flight attendant. A dedicated TSA agent. The fates of these three, and many others, converge in Danielle Steel’s gripping new novel—a heart-stopping thriller that engages ordinary men and women in the fight of their lives during a flight from New York to San Francisco. On a beautiful May morning at New York’s John F. Kennedy airport, two planes have just departed for San Francisco—one a 757, another a smaller Airbus A321. At a security checkpoint, TSA agent Bernice Adams finds a postcard of the Golden Gate Bridge bearing an ambiguous—perhaps ominous—message. Her supervisor dismisses her concerns, but Bernice calls security and soon Ben Waterman arrives. A senior Homeland Security agent, still grappling with guilt after a disastrous operation in which hostages were killed, Ben too becomes suspicious. Who left the postcard behind, which flight is that person on, and what exactly does the message mean? As Ben scans the passenger manifests, his focus turns to the A321, with Helen Smith as its senior pilot. Helen’s military service and her tenure with the airline have been exemplary. But her husband’s savage death in Iraq was more than anyone should bear, leaving her widowed with three children. A major film star is on board. So is an off-duty pilot who has just lost his forty-year career. So is a distraught father, traveling with the baby son he has abducted from his estranged wife. Sifting through data and relying on instinct, Ben becomes convinced that someone on Helen’s plane is planning something terrible. And he’s right. Passengers, crew, and experts on the ground become heroes out of necessity to try to avert tragedy at the eleventh hour. In her stunning novel, Danielle Steel combines intense action with stories of emotionally rich, intertwined lives. As the jet bears down on its destination of San Francisco, strangers are united, desperate choices are made, and futures will be changed forever by a handful of accidental heroes. |
| biggest idiots in history: A Confederacy of Dunces John Kennedy Toole, 2007-12-01 Winner of the Pulitzer Prize “A masterwork . . . the novel astonishes with its inventiveness . . . it is nothing less than a grand comic fugue.”—The New York Times Book Review A Confederacy of Dunces is an American comic masterpiece. John Kennedy Toole's hero, one Ignatius J. Reilly, is huge, obese, fractious, fastidious, a latter-day Gargantua, a Don Quixote of the French Quarter. His story bursts with wholly original characters, denizens of New Orleans' lower depths, incredibly true-to-life dialogue, and the zaniest series of high and low comic adventures (Henry Kisor, Chicago Sun-Times). |
| biggest idiots in history: What Happened Hillary Rodham Clinton, 2017-09-12 “An engaging, beautifully synthesized page-turner” (Slate). The #1 New York Times bestseller and Time #1 Nonfiction Book of the Year: Hillary Rodham Clinton’s most personal memoir yet, about the 2016 presidential election. In this “candid and blackly funny” (The New York Times) memoir, Hillary Rodham Clinton reveals what she was thinking and feeling during one of the most controversial and unpredictable presidential elections in history. She takes us inside the intense personal experience of becoming the first woman nominated for president by a major party in an election marked by rage, sexism, exhilarating highs and infuriating lows, stranger-than-fiction twists, Russian interference, and an opponent who broke all the rules. “At her most emotionally raw” (People), Hillary describes what it was like to run against Donald Trump, the mistakes she made, how she has coped with a shocking and devastating loss, and how she found the strength to pick herself back up afterward. She tells readers what it took to get back on her feet—the rituals, relationships, and reading that got her through, and what the experience has taught her about life. In this “feminist manifesto” (The New York Times), she speaks to the challenges of being a strong woman in the public eye, the criticism over her voice, age, and appearance, and the double standard confronting women in politics. Offering a “bracing... guide to our political arena” (The Washington Post), What Happened lays out how the 2016 election was marked by an unprecedented assault on our democracy by a foreign adversary. By analyzing the evidence and connecting the dots, Hillary shows just how dangerous the forces are that shaped the outcome, and why Americans need to understand them to protect our values and our democracy in the future. The election of 2016 was unprecedented and historic. What Happened is the story of that campaign, now with a new epilogue showing how Hillary grappled with many of her worst fears coming true in the Trump Era, while finding new hope in a surge of civic activism, women running for office, and young people marching in the streets. |
| biggest idiots in history: Those They Called Idiots Simon Jarrett, 2025-04-12 Sensitive and sweeping, this is a history of the little-known lives of people with learning disabilities from the communities of eighteenth-century England, to the nineteenth-century asylum, to care in today’s society. Those They Called Idiots traces the little-known lives of people with learning disabilities from the communities of eighteenth-century England to the nineteenth-century asylum, to care in today’s society. Using evidence from civil and criminal courtrooms, joke books, slang dictionaries, novels, art, and caricature, it explores the explosive intermingling of ideas about intelligence and race, while bringing into sharp focus the lives of people often seen as the most marginalized in society. |
| biggest idiots in history: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Biblical Mysteries Donald P. Ryan, 2000 Provides insight into biblical stories, miracles, and figures through historical context and scholarship, and explores the present controversies over lost texts, creationism, and archaeological findings. |
| biggest idiots in history: Sophie's World Jostein Gaarder, 2007-03-20 A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: Who are you? and Where does the world come from? From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined. |
| biggest idiots in history: The Gilded Age Mark Twain, Charles Dudley Warner, 1904 |
| biggest idiots in history: The Complete Idiot's Guide to European History, 2nd Edition Nathan Barber, 2011-10-04 • Fascinating, fact-filled writing that delivers hundreds of years in the life of the European continent • Terrific supplementary reading for AP History students |
| biggest idiots in history: Not Without a Fight Scott C. Benyacko, 2009-10-22 Turning thirty leaves scars. It's like watching the odometer roll over on you car. For Kevin Andrews, the morning of his thirtieth birthday signals another nail in his coffin. When his wife tells him that morning that she's pregnant, Kevin knows his days of youth are slowly coming to an end. In an attempt to recapture those glory days, Kevin embarks on a trek to make Odysseus hang his head in shame. Kevin meets drunken neighbors, receives advice from an old hippy, and nearly ruins his marriage when he runs into an old girlfriend. This novel proves what women already know. Men are idiots. |
| biggest idiots in history: At the Crossroads of Greco-Roman History, Culture, and Religion Sinclair W. Bell, Lora L. Holland, 2018-09-30 Papers in honour of Carin M. C. Green (1948-2015) are presented under 3 headings: (1) Greek philosophy, history, and historiography; (2) Latin literature, history, and historiography; and (3) Greco-Roman material culture, religion, and literature |
| biggest idiots in history: Rage Bob Woodward, 2020-09-15 Rage is an unprecedented and intimate tour de force of new reporting on the Trump presidency facing a global pandemic, economic disaster and racial unrest. Woodward, the #1 international bestselling author of Fear: Trump in the White House, has uncovered the precise moment the president was warned that the Covid-19 epidemic would be the biggest national security threat to his presidency. In dramatic detail, Woodward takes readers into the Oval Office as Trump’s head pops up when he is told in January 2020 that the pandemic could reach the scale of the 1918 Spanish Flu that killed 675,000 Americans. In 17 on-the-record interviews with Woodward over seven volatile months—an utterly vivid window into Trump’s mind—the president provides a self-portrait that is part denial and part combative interchange mixed with surprising moments of doubt as he glimpses the perils in the presidency and what he calls the “dynamite behind every door.” At key decision points, Rage shows how Trump’s responses to the crises of 2020 were rooted in the instincts, habits and style he developed during his first three years as president. Revisiting the earliest days of the Trump presidency, Rage reveals how Secretary of Defense James Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats struggled to keep the country safe as the president dismantled any semblance of collegial national security decision making. Rage draws from hundreds of hours of interviews with firsthand witnesses as well as participants’ notes, emails, diaries, calendars and confidential documents. Woodward obtained 25 never-seen personal letters exchanged between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who describes the bond between the two leaders as out of a “fantasy film.” Trump insists to Woodward he will triumph over Covid-19 and the economic calamity. “Don’t worry about it, Bob. Okay?” Trump told the author in July. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll get to do another book. You’ll find I was right.” |
| biggest idiots in history: Inventing the Feeble Mind James Trent, 2016-11-01 Pity, disgust, fear, cure, and prevention--all are words that Americans have used to make sense of what today we call intellectual disability. Inventing the Feeble Mind explores the history of this disability from its several identifications over the past 200 years: idiocy, imbecility, feeblemindedness, mental defect, mental deficiency, mental retardation, and most recently intellectual disability. Using institutional records, private correspondence, personal memories, and rare photographs, James Trent argues that the economic vulnerability of intellectually disabled people (and often their families), more than the claims made for their intellectual and social limitations, has shaped meaning, services, and policies in United States history. |
| biggest idiots in history: The 80 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time Jonathan Vankin, John Whalen, 2004 Expanded and Updated Because Weird Things Keep On Happening The effects of the Invisible Hand are all around us, machinations to control the world are happening right under our noses-and The 80 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time lists them all. This book presents a feverish feast of the most far-reaching, far-out, and startling conspiracy theories ever. Now this instant classic has been brought up to date with late-breaking mysteries and coverups, including: * Enron-a faked energy crisis that led to a devastatingly real economic one * Anthrax nation-just who sent lethal bacteria through the mail to the U.S. Congress? * Votescam 2000 * 911 and the theories surrounding the terrorist attacks * Echelon, the global electronic spying network-Big Brother made real * Who was the Zodiac Killer? * And more! Whether you believe any of these theories or merely enjoy a walk on the wild side of alternative history, The 80 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time will provide hours of provocative reading. You will never look at the world in quite the same way again. |
| biggest idiots in history: A History of Pi Petr Beckmann, 1971 Traces the history of the mathematical constant pi from the stone age through the computer age, discussing the background of the times when pi progressed, and when it did not. |
| biggest idiots in history: Our Dumb Century Scott Dikkers, 1999 The Onion has quickly become the world's most popular humor publication, misinforming half a million readers a week with one-of-a-kind social satire both in print (on newsstands nationwide) and online from its remote office in Madison, Wisconsin. Witness the march of history as Editor-in-Chief Scott Dikkers and The Onion's award-winning writing staff present the twentieth century like you've never seen it before. |
| biggest idiots in history: The Blue Horse and Other Amazing Animals from Indian History Nandini Sengupta, 2020-11-25 It’s not just humans who make history, you know. So move over, chroniclers and historians. For centuries, we’ve been ignored, forgotten, occasionally footnoted (thanks a lot). It’s time we took centre stage. Strongest allies, faithful friends...we’ll even go so far as to say we were the soulmates of great kings and queens, princes and princesses, warriors and administrators. From saving their lives (while putting ours at risk) and leading them to victory in war to being a constant source of joy and love, we’ve done it all. Take a tour of Akbar’s dazzling court with his favourite cheetah, Samand Manik. Learn about the heroic battle of Haldighati – straight from Chetak’s mouth. Find out what Chhatrapati Shivaji was really like – from his dog, Waghya. Full of daring exploits, epic romances and heart-wrenching moments, these underdog (oh calm down, Bucephalus, it’s just a term!) stories are unlike anything you’ve ever read before! |
| biggest idiots in history: An Unsettled Grave Bernard Schaffer, 2019-07-30 “The most engaging pair of detectives I’ve seen in a long while.” —David Morrell SOME SECRETS WILL NOT DIE For three agonizing decades, seasoned manhunter Jacob Rein has been consumed by one case—a missing girl never found and two cops dead, one murdered, the other a suicide. Rein’s protégé, Detective Carrie Santero, shares an equal fascination with the twisted patterns of murder. But when the discovery of a small human foot unearthed in the Pennsylvania woods leads her to a decades-old cold case, she is not prepared for the secrets she will unravel—and their connection to her mentor’s dark and buried past . . . Praise for Berard Schaffer’s The Thief of All Light “Tense, fast, and excellent—I loved this book.” —Lee Child “Schaffer writes about cops with the assurance of a seasoned police veteran.” —Lisa Scottoline “Schaffer presents a thriller that is both gruesome in content and honest in its portrayal of police procedures.” —Booklist “Schaffer is the real deal. His writing will knock you out.” —J.A. Konrath |
| biggest idiots in history: The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity Carlo M. Cipolla, 2021-04-06 A masterly book —Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan A classic —Simon Kuper, Financial Times An economist explains five laws that confirm our worst fears: stupid people can and do rule the world Throughout history, a powerful force has hindered the growth of human welfare and happiness. It is more powerful than the Mafia or the military. It has global catastrophic effects and can be found anywhere from the world's most powerful boardrooms to your local bar. It is human stupidity. Carlo M. Cipolla, noted professor of economic history at the UC Berkeley, created this vitally important book in order to detect and neutralize its threat. Both hilarious and dead serious, it will leave you better equipped to confront political realities, unreasonable colleagues, or your next dinner with your in-laws. The Laws: 1. Everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals among us. 2. The probability that a certain person is stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person. 3. A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person while deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses themselves. 4. Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. 5. A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person. |
| biggest idiots in history: How America Lost Its Mind Thomas E. Patterson, 2019-10-03 Americans are losing touch with reality. On virtually every issue, from climate change to immigration, tens of millions of Americans have opinions and beliefs wildly at odds with fact, rendering them unable to think sensibly about politics. In How America Lost Its Mind, Thomas E. Patterson explains the rise of a world of “alternative facts” and the slow-motion cultural and political calamity unfolding around us. We don’t have to search far for the forces that are misleading us and tearing us apart: politicians for whom division is a strategy; talk show hosts who have made an industry of outrage; news outlets that wield conflict as a marketing tool; and partisan organizations and foreign agents who spew disinformation to advance a cause, make a buck, or simply amuse themselves. The consequences are severe. How America Lost Its Mind maps a political landscape convulsed with distrust, gridlock, brinksmanship, petty feuding, and deceptive messaging. As dire as this picture is, and as unlikely as immediate relief might be, Patterson sees a way forward and underscores its urgency. A call to action, his book encourages us to wrest institutional power from ideologues and disruptors and entrust it to sensible citizens and leaders, to restore our commitment to mutual tolerance and restraint, to cleanse the Internet of fake news and disinformation, and to demand a steady supply of trustworthy and relevant information from our news sources. As philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote decades ago, the rise of demagogues is abetted by “people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.” In How America Lost Its Mind, Thomas E. Patterson makes a passionate case for fully and fiercely engaging on the side of truth and mutual respect in our present arms race between fact and fake, unity and division, civility and incivility. |
| biggest idiots in history: Emperors and Idiots Mike Vaccaro, 2007-12-18 The New York Yankees. The Boston Red Sox. For a hundred years, no two teams have locked horns as fiercely or as frequently – and no two seasons frame the colossal battle more perfectly than 2003 and 2004. Now, with incredible energy and access, leading sports columnist Mike Vaccaro chronicles the history of the greatest rivalry in sports, and the two stunning American League Championship Series that define a century of baseball. October 17, 2003: A night no Yankees or Red Sox fan will ever forget. At 12:15 am, bottom of the eleventh inning of game seven of the ALCS, New York third-baseman Aaron Boone launches a ball over Yankee Stadium’s left-field fence. The Yankees win their 39th pennant – and send the perennially vexed Boston Red Sox home . . . again . . . suffering another devastating loss to their longtime nemesis. October 20, 2004: A year later, an eerie reprise – but this time things are different. After losing three straight to the Yankees, Boston has charged back to win the next three, forcing a decisive game seven. From the start of the game Boston is in control, and by winning this game they march toward their first World Series victory since 1918. These two explosive years define an extraordinary, epic rivalry – from Mariano Rivera and Roger Clemens to Pedro Martinez and Curt Schilling, Derek Jeter and Aaron Boone to David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez, from nearly a century of Yankee domination to the undisputed breaking of “The Curse.” With the razor-sharp instincts that have made him a top sports journalist, Mike Vaccaro delves into the history of the rollicking rivalry: a vicious collision in 1903 (between the New York Highlanders and Boston Pilgrims) that draws first blood; the era of Babe Ruth and his legendary trade from the Red Sox to the Yankees, ushering in the notorious Curse; the golden age of DiMaggio and Williams; the unstoppable power of Mantle and Maris; the heart and soul of Fisk and Yazstremski versus Pinella and Munson; and the modern era of dueling owners, skyrocketing payrolls, and a renewed rivalry that attracts sell-out crowds even to Yankees-Red Sox spring training games. EMPERORS AND IDIOTS is as lively, fascinating, and raucous as the teams themselves – a must-have volume for any Yankees or Red Sox fan. |
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