At the beginning of The Dictator's Learning Curve: Inside the Global Battle for Democracy, William Dobson states a fact that is all too clear for anyone who studies history or reads the news: Authoritarian governments rarely fret over United Nations sanctions or interference from a foreign rights group that can be easily expelled. Indeed, the mere threat of foreign intervention, whether from the United States, the United Nations, or a body like the International Criminal Court, can be a useful foil for stirring up nationalist passions and encouraging people to rally around the regime. (p. 9)
In the Summer 2008 issue of The Objective Standard, John David Lewis concluded his review of Sun-tzu: Art of War with this important truth: "War is fought with wits as well as with weapons, and the way to victory is to use one's mind to defeat one's enemy." In The Secret Lives of Codebreakers: The Men and Women Who Cracked the Enigma Code at Bletchley Park , Sinclair McKay relays how this truth played out in Britain's relentless fight against Nazi Germany.
Two months after D-Day, an agent working in Britain received a message from his Nazi handler that said, in part: With great happiness and satisfaction I am able to advise you today that the Führer has awarded the Iron Cross to you for your extraordinary merits, a decoration which, without exception, is granted only to front-line combatants. For that reason we all send you our most sincere and cordial congratulations. (p. 335)
The movie was about a woman whose mission it was to find a cunning enemy agent, to seduce him and kill him. There was little known about the man, not even his name. Armed only with a blurred photograph, a small handgun and her determination, she tracked and pursued him all over the world, always coming within just a few moments or a few steps of seeing him. As she learned his every habit and motivation, she became increasingly captivated, and driven as much by a need to see his face as by the necessity of completing her task. Finally, she followed him to a remote desert, certain that he wouldn't be able to elude her there—but she became hopelessly lost. Overcome by exhaustion and the burning heat, she fell to the sand. Lifting her eyes, she saw him on the crest of the dune above her, traced against the white desert sky. Pulling herself to her knees, she drew the gun and aimed . . . but her hands began to shake. She wiped a tear away with her sleeve. “I'm sorry,” she said, “but you see—I've fallen in love with you. . . .” She steadied the gun, closed her eyes, and fired.
The term “command economy” was coined by the Nazis, but it was later used to describe the economies of the Soviet Union and sundry other “people's states.” On paper, it sounded like this: Instead of allowing dispersed buyers and sellers to determine their own economic activities according to the laws of supply and demand, a higher authority would issue commands determining the overall direction of the economy following a master plan. The command principle entailed that all economic decisions were centralized for the greater good, as the state determined what should be produced, how much should be produced, who produced what and where, how resources should be allocated and what prices should be charged for materials, goods and services. (p. 127)
Roy F. Baumeister started his career in psychology skeptical that such a thing as willpower even exists. In this, he says, he did not differ from many other psychologists and philosophers. But then he observed willpower in the laboratory: how it gives people the strength to persevere, how they lose self-control as their willpower is depleted, how this mental energy is fueled by the glucose in one's bloodstream. He . . . discovered that willpower, like a muscle, becomes fatigued from overuse but can also be strengthened over the long term through exercise. (pp. 1–2)
Anyone eager to increase his mental productivity will do well to read David Rock's Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long. Each chapter has many tips that you can put to use right away to get more and better work done. And the setup is not just clear and entertaining but also memorable.
One day, in 1893, while taking a walk, nineteen-year-old Louise Barant met a slightly older man named Joseph Vacher (pronounced Vashay). After he asked about the weather, they went to a café, where, much to Louise's surprise, Vacher proposed marriage. He added that if she ever betrayed him, he'd kill her.
Professor Max Pettenkofer held up a flask containing deadly cholera bacteria. The rapt attention of the students gathered all around him was unsurprising, for the professor had raised the flask in a toast, about to drink it. Pettenkofer did not believe that he would die. Contrary to the opinions of many scientists, he thought that the billion or so bacteria inside the flask would cause cholera only under certain conditions, conditions that were not present in his experiment. The experiment, he thought, would prove that he was right and that the theories held by others were wrong, settling the issue resolutely.
Although many teachers make the subject of rhetoric boring and seemingly useless, in Farnsworth's Classical English Rhetoric, Ward Farnsworth makes it fascinating and fruitful.