Knowledge = Power

Based  on an extraordinary collaboration between Steve Forbes, chairman, CEO,  and editor in chief of Forbes Media, and classics professor John Prevas,  Power Ambition Glory provides intriguing comparisons between six great leaders of the ancient world and contemporary business leaders. •  Great leaders not only have vision but know how to build structures to  effect it. Cyrus the Great did so in creating an empire based on  tolerance and inclusion, an approach highly unusual for his or any age.  Jack Welch and John Chambers built their business empires using a  similar approach, and like Cyrus, they remain the exceptions rather than  the rule. • Great leaders know how to build consensus and motivate  by doing what is right rather than what is in their self-interest.  Xenophon put personal gain aside to lead his fellow Greeks out of a  perilous situation in Persia–something very similar to what Lou Gerstner  and Anne Mulcahy did in rescuing IBM and Xerox. • Character matters  in leadership. Alexander the Great had exceptional leadership skills  that enabled him to conquer the eastern half of the ancient world, but  he was ultimately destroyed by his inability to manage his phenomenal  success. The corporate world is full of similar examples, such as the  now incarcerated Dennis Kozlowski, who, flush with success at the head  of his empire, was driven down the highway of self-destruction by an  out-of-control ego. • A great leader is one who challenges the  conventional wisdom of the day and is able to think out of the box to  pull off amazing feats. Hannibal did something no one in the ancient  world thought possible; he crossed the Alps in winter to challenge Rome  for control of the ancient world. That same innovative way of thinking  enabled Serge Brin and Larry Page of Google to challenge and best two  formidable competitors, Microsoft and Yahoo! • A leader must have  ambition to succeed, and Julius Caesar had plenty of it. He set Rome on  the path to empire, but his success made him believe he was a living god  and blinded him to the dangers that eventually did him in. The  parallels with corporate leaders and Wall Street master-of-the-universe  types are numerous, but none more salient than Hank Greenberg, who built  the AIG insurance empire only to be struck down at the height of his  success by the corporate daggers of his directors. • And finally,  leadership is about keeping a sane and modest perspective in the face of  success and remaining focused on the fundamentals–the nuts and bolts of  making an organization work day in and day out. Augustus saved Rome  from dissolution after the assassination of Julius Caesar and ruled it  for more than forty years, bringing the empire to the height of its  power. What made him successful were personal humility, attention to the  mundane details of building and maintaining an infrastructure, and the  understanding of limits. Augustus set Rome on a course of prosperity and  stability that lasted for centuries, just as Alfred Sloan, using many  of the same approaches, built GM into the leviathan that until recently  dominated the automotive business.

Throughout  this lively and concise historical account of Mao Zedong's life and  thought, Rebecca E. Karl places the revolutionary leader's personal  experiences, social visions and theory, military strategies, and  developmental and foreign policies in a dynamic narrative of the Chinese  revolution. She situates Mao and the revolution in a global setting  informed by imperialism, decolonization, and third worldism, and  discusses worldwide trends in politics, the economy, military power, and  territorial sovereignty. Karl begins with Mao's early life in a small  village in Hunan province, documenting his relationships with his  parents, passion for education, and political awakening during the fall  of the Qing dynasty in late 1911. She traces his transition from  liberal to Communist over the course of the next decade, his early  critiques of the subjugation of women, and the gathering force of the  May 4th movement for reform and radical change. Describing Mao's rise to  power, she delves into the dynamics of Communist organizing in an  overwhelmingly agrarian society, and Mao's confrontations with Chiang  Kai-shek and other nationalist conservatives. She also considers his  marriages and romantic liaisons and their relation to Mao as the  revolutionary founder of Communism in China. The book is published by Duke University Press.

“Amazing stories . . . Intimate portraits of how [these five  ruthless leaders] were at home and at the table.” —Lulu Garcia-Navarro,  NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday Anthony Bourdain meets  Kapuściński in this chilling look from within the kitchen at the  appetites of five of the twentieth century's most infamous dictators, by  the acclaimed author of Dancing Bears. What was Pol  Pot eating while two million Cambodians were dying of hunger? Did Idi  Amin really eat human flesh? And why was Fidel Castro obsessed with one  particular cow? Traveling across four continents, from the  ruins of Iraq to the savannahs of Kenya, Witold Szabłowski tracked down  the personal chefs of five dictators known for the oppression and  massacre of their own citizens—Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Uganda’s Idi  Amin, Albania’s Enver Hoxha, Cuba’s Fidel Castro, and Cambodia’s Pol  Pot—and listened to their stories over sweet-and-sour soup, goat-meat  pilaf, bottles of rum, and games of gin rummy. Dishy, deliciously  readable, and dead serious, How to Feed a Dictator provides a knife’s-edge view of life under tyranny.

Perhaps no one in the twentieth century had a greater long-term  impact on world history than Deng Xiaoping. And no scholar of  contemporary East Asian history and culture is better qualified than Ezra Vogel to disentangle the many contradictions embodied in the life and legacy of China’s boldest strategist. Once described by Mao Zedong as a “needle inside a ball of cotton,”  Deng was the pragmatic yet disciplined driving force behind China’s  radical transformation in the late twentieth century. He confronted the  damage wrought by the Cultural Revolution, dissolved Mao’s cult of  personality, and loosened the economic and social policies that had  stunted China’s growth. Obsessed with modernization and technology, Deng  opened trade relations with the West, which lifted hundreds of millions  of his countrymen out of poverty. Yet at the same time he answered to  his authoritarian roots, most notably when he ordered the crackdown in  June 1989 at Tiananmen Square. Deng’s youthful commitment to the Communist Party was cemented in  Paris in the early 1920s, among a group of Chinese student-workers that  also included Zhou Enlai. Deng returned home in 1927 to join the Chinese  Revolution on the ground floor. In the fifty years of his tumultuous  rise to power, he endured accusations, purges, and even exile before  becoming China’s preeminent leader from 1978 to 1989 and again in 1992.  When he reached the top, Deng saw an opportunity to creatively destroy  much of the economic system he had helped build for five decades as a  loyal follower of Mao—and he did not hesitate.

First published in 1841,  Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds is often  cited as the best book ever written about market psychology. This  Harriman House edition includes Charles Mackay's account of the three  infamous financial manias - John Law's Mississipi Scheme, the South Sea  Bubble, and Tulipomania. Between the three of them, these historic  episodes confirm that greed and fear have always been the driving forces  of financial markets, and, furthermore, that being sensible and clever  is no defence against the mesmeric allure of a popular craze with the  wind behind it. In writing the history of the great financial  manias, Charles Mackay proved himself a master chronicler of social as  well as financial history. Blessed with a cast of characters that  covered all the vices, gifted a passage of events which was inevitably  heading for disaster, and with the benefit of hindsight, he produced a  record that is at once a riveting thriller and absorbing historical  document. A century and a half later, it is as vibrant and lurid as the  day it was written. For modern-day investors, still reeling from  the dotcom crash, the moral of the popular manias scarcely needs  spelling out. When the next stock market bubble comes along, as it  surely will, you are advised to recall the plight of some of the  unfortunates on these pages, and avoid getting dragged under the wheels  of the careering bandwagon yourself.

The Sword and the Shield is based on one of the most extraordinary intelligence coups of recent  times: a secret archive of top-level KGB documents smuggled out of the  Soviet Union which the FBI has described, after close examination, as  the "most complete and extensive intelligence ever received from any  source." Its presence in the West represents a catastrophic hemorrhage  of the KGB's secrets and reveals for the first time the full extent of  its worldwide network. Vasili Mitrokhin, a secret dissident who worked  in the KGB archive, smuggled out copies of its most highly classified  files every day for twelve years. In 1992, a U.S. ally succeeded in  exfiltrating the KGB officer and his entire archive out of Moscow. The  archive covers the entire period from the Bolshevik Revolution to the  1980s and includes revelations concerning almost every country in the  world. But the KGB's main target, of course, was the United States.  Though there is top-secret material on almost every country in the  world, the United States is at the top of the list. As well as  containing many fascinating revelations, this is a major contribution to  the secret history of the twentieth century. Among the topics and  revelations explored are: The KGB's covert operations in the United  States and throughout the West, some of which remain dangerous today.  KGB files on Oswald and the JFK assassination that Boris Yeltsin almost  certainly has no intention of showing President Clinton. The KGB's  attempts to discredit civil rights leader in the 1960s, including its  infiltration of the inner circle of a key leader. The KGB's use of radio  intercept posts in New York and Washington, D.C., in the 1970s to  intercept high-level U.S. government communications. The KGB's attempts  to steal technological secrets from major U.S. aerospace and technology  corporations. KGB covert operations against former President Ronald  Reagan, which began five years before he became president. KGB spies who  successfully posed as U.S. citizens under a series of ingenious  disguises, including several who attained access to the upper echelons  of New York society.

THE BEST-SELLING AUTHOR OF PITCH ANYTHING IS BACK TO FLIP YOUR ENTIRE APPROACH TO PERSUASION. Is  there anything worse than a high-pressure salesperson pushing you to  say "yes" (then sign on the dotted line) before you're ready? If  there's one lesson Oren Klaff has learned over decades of pitching,  presenting, and closing long-shot, high-stakes deals, it's that people  are sick of being marketed and sold to. Most of all, they hate being  told what to think. The more you push them, the more they resist. What  people love, however, is coming up with a great idea on their own, even  if it's the idea you were guiding them to have all along. Often, the  only way to get someone to sign is to make them feel like they're  smarter than you. That's why Oren is throwing out the  old playbook on persuasion. Instead, he'll show you a new approach that  works on this simple insight: Everyone trusts their own ideas. If,  rather than pushing your idea on your buyer, you can guide them to  discover it on their own, they'll believe it, trust it, and get excited  about it. Then they'll buy in and feel good about the chance to work  with you. That might sound easier said than done, but  Oren has taught thousands of people how to do it with a series of  simple steps that anyone can follow in any situation. And as you'll see in this book, Oren has been in a lot of different situations. He'll  show you how he got a billionaire to take him seriously, how he got a  venture capital firm to cough up capital, and how he made a skeptical  Swiss banker see him as an expert in banking. He'll even show you how to  become so compelling that buyers are even more attracted to you than to  your product. These days, it's not enough to make a great pitch. To get attention, create trust, and close the deal, you need to flip the script.

"It’s a startling and disconcerting read that should make you think twice every time a friend of a friend offers you the opportunity of a lifetime.” —Erik Larson, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Dead Wake and bestselling author of Devil in the White City Think you can’t get conned? Think again. The New York Times bestselling author of Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes explains how to spot the con before they spot you. “[An] excellent study of Con Artists, stories & the human need to believe” –Neil Gaiman, via Twitter A  compelling investigation into the minds, motives, and methods of con  artists—and the people who fall for their cons over and over again. While cheats and swindlers may be a dime a dozen, true conmen—the  Bernie Madoffs, the Jim Bakkers, the Lance Armstrongs—are elegant,  outsized personalities, artists of persuasion and exploiters of trust.  How do they do it? Why are they successful? And what keeps us falling  for it, over and over again? These are the questions that journalist and  psychologist Maria Konnikova tackles in her mesmerizing new book. From multimillion-dollar Ponzi schemes to small-time frauds, Konnikova  pulls together a selection of fascinating stories to demonstrate what  all cons share in common, drawing on scientific, dramatic, and  psychological perspectives. Insightful and gripping, the book brings  readers into the world of the con, examining the relationship between  artist and victim. The Confidence Game asks not only why we  believe con artists, but also examines the very act of believing and how  our sense of truth can be manipulated by those around us.

When you react, the event controls you. When you respond, you're in control. Verbal Judo is the classic guide to the martial art of the mind and mouth that can  help you defuse confrontations and generate cooperation, whether you're  talking to a boss, a spouse, or even a teenager. For more than a  generation, Dr. George J. Thompson's essential handbook has taught  people how to communicate more confidently and persuasively in any  situation. Verbal Judo shows you how to listen and speak more  effectively, engage others through empathy (the most powerful word in  the English language), avoid the most common conversational disasters,  and use proven strategies to successfully express your point of view -  and take the lead in most disputes. This updated edition includes a new foreword and a chapter featuring Dr. Thompson's five universal truths of human interaction: People feel the need to be respected People would rather be asked than be told People have a desire to know why People prefer to have options over threats People want to have second chances Stop being frustrated and misunderstood. Stop finding yourself on the losing end of an argument. With Verbal Judo you'll be able to have your say - and say what you mean.

A master class in the art of persuasion, as taught by  professors ranging from Bart Simpson to Winston Churchill, newly revised  and updated. The time-tested secrets taught in this book  include Cicero's three-step strategy for moving an audience to action,  and Honest Abe's Shameless Trick for lowering an audience's  expectations. And it's also replete with contemporary techniques such as  politicians' use of code language to appeal to specfic groups and an  eye-opening assortment of persuasive tricks, including the Eddie Haskell  Ploy, the Belushi Paradigm, Stalin's Timing Secret, and the Yoda  Technique.    Whether you're an inveterate lover of language  books or just want to win a lot more anger-free arguments on the page,  at the podium, or over a beer, Thank You for Arguing is for you. Warm,  witty, erudite, and truly enlightening, it not only teaches you how to  recognize a paralipsis when you hear it, but also how to wield the  weapons of persuasion the next time you really, really, want to get your  own way.