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On the Psychology of Military Incompetence
- Narrated by: James Langton
- Length: 17 hrs and 22 mins
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Publisher's summary
A classic study of military leadership uncovering why generals fail
The Crimea, the Boer War, the Somme, Tobruk, Pearl Harbor, the Bay of Pigs: these are just some of the milestones in a century of military incompetence, of costly mishaps and tragic blunders. Are these simple accidents—as the "bloody fool" theory has it—or are they inevitable?
The psychologist Norman F. Dixon argues that there is a pattern to inept generalship, and he locates this pattern within the very act of creating armies in the first place, which in his view produces a levelling down of human capability that encourages the mediocre and limits the gifted. In this light, successful generals achieve what they do despite the stultifying features of the organization to which they belong.
On the Psychology of Military Incompetence is at once an original exploration of the battles that have defined the last two centuries of human civilization and an essential guide for the next generation of military leaders.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
Critic reviews
"One does not have to share all, or even most, of Dixon's often rebarbative views to agree that this penetrating, self-knowing, often hilarious, and sometimes alarming book is a must-read. It is a classic of military history awaiting rediscovery today.” Brendan Simms, author of Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy
"An original, scientifically impressive and fascinating book . . . a minor classic.” Tablet
"An absorbing, perceptive and often very funny study in human frailty.” Listener
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Do you know how many wives Zeus had? Or how the famous Trojan War was caused by one beautiful lady? Or how Thor got his hammer? Give your imagination a real treat. This Mega Mythology Collection of eight audiobooks is for you....
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An interesting set of introductions.
- By Kevin Potter on 05-30-19
By: Scott Lewis
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Curse of Riches
- By: Claire Prentice
- Narrated by: Claire Prentice, Hillary Huber
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Original Recording
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How did the Wendels, one of New York’s most famous Gilded Age families, disappear from history? The Wendels built a fortune from New York real estate, and rubbed shoulders with the Astors, Vanderbilts, and Stuyvesants. But as the 19th century came to an end, the Wendel family tore itself apart. Following six years of painstaking archival research, Claire Prentice has prised open the door of the Wendels’ Fifth Avenue mansion—dubbed “the house of mystery” by the press—to reveal a fascinating and dysfunctional family imprisoned in a gilded cage.
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Kept Waiting for it to be Interesting
- By Mary on 06-23-23
By: Claire Prentice
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Family of Secrets
- The Bush Dynasty, the Powerful Forces That Put It in the White House, and What Their Influence Means for America
- By: Russ Baker
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 24 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre said that "words are loaded pistols". In the hands of Russ Baker, they are hydrogen bombs. On each and every page of his masterpiece, Family of Secrets, he explodes the myths and lies that powerful forces have perpetrated on the American consciousness. He digs beneath the surface in a form of journalistic archeology to reveal the hidden history of one of America's most powerful families, leaving no stone unturned.
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Still Relevant, Impossible to Put Down
- By Emilio Largo on 12-14-12
By: Russ Baker
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The Right Stuff
- By: Tom Wolfe
- Narrated by: Dennis Quaid
- Length: 15 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Millions of words have poured forth about man's trip to the moon, but until now few people have had a sense of the most engrossing side of the adventure: namely, what went on in the minds of the astronauts themselves - in space, on the moon, and even during certain odysseys on earth. It is this, the inner life of the astronauts, that Tom Wolfe describes with his almost uncanny empathetic powers that made The Right Stuff a classic.
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Righteous Book, Righteous Narrator, Righteous MEN!
- By Gillian on 02-08-18
By: Tom Wolfe
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Queer West
- How the West Was Fabulous
- By: Brenna Farrell, Zakiya Gibbons, Ellen Horne
- Narrated by: Niecy Nash-Betts
- Length: 3 hrs and 57 mins
- Original Recording
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Stories of "The American West" often rely on tired tropes of tough cowboys, but real history is much less straight and narrow and way more interesting. Join host Niecy Nash-Betts for a wild round-up of LGBTQ+ lives that got buried in the dust of popular culture and history, and a look at how queer people continue to shape the West today–from gay rodeo to two-spirit identity to trans truckers.
By: Brenna Farrell, and others
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The Hidden History of the Boston Tea Party
- By: Adam Jortner, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Adam Jortner
- Length: 2 hrs and 56 mins
- Original Recording
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The history of the Boston Tea Party is a hidden one. Why? Since it was a clandestine operation, all sorts of rumors and legends grew up around the event—many collected decades after the American Revolution had ended. At its core, however, the night of December 16, 1773, when colonials dumped tea from British ships into Boston Harbor, was more than a fight over tea and taxes. It was a struggle over the very nature of democracy and self-governance.
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How nuanced this event actually was
- By Cody T. on 12-17-23
By: Adam Jortner, and others
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An excellent adaptation of an excellent book
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When we think about the future of war, the military and Washington and most everyone gets it backwards. We think in terms of buying single military systems, such as fighter jets or aircraft carriers. And when we think about modernizing those systems, we think about buying better versions of the same things. But what really matters is not the single system but "the battle network"—the collection of sensors and shooters that enables a military to find an enemy system, target it, and attack it.
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important message but repetitive
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Leadership Strategy and Tactics (Field Manual Expanded Edition)
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Iron and Blood
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German military history is typically viewed as an inexorable march to the rise of Prussia and the two world wars, the road paved by militarism and the result a specifically German way of war. Peter Wilson challenges this narrative. Looking beyond Prussia to German-speaking Europe across the last five centuries, Wilson finds little unique or preordained in German militarism or warfighting. Iron and Blood takes as its starting point the consolidation of the Holy Roman Empire, which created new mechanisms for raising troops but also for resolving disputes diplomatically.
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An Historic Achievement
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Two leading authorities—an acclaimed historian and the outstanding battlefield commander and strategist of our time—collaborate on a landmark examination of war since 1945. Conflict is both a sweeping history of the evolution of warfare up to Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine, and a penetrating analysis of what we must learn from the past—and anticipate in the future—in order to navigate an increasingly perilous world.
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Outstanding!
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Catch-22
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Set in Italy during World War II, this is the story of the incomparable, malingering bombardier Yossarian, a hero who is furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. But his real problem is not the enemy - it is his own army, which keeps increasing the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempt to excuse himself from the perilous missions he's assigned, he'll be in violation of Catch-22.
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Stop randomly adding music
- By Kenneth S. Clark on 08-31-18
By: Joseph Heller
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The Thirty Years War
- Europe's Tragedy
- By: Peter H. Wilson
- Narrated by: Matthew Waterson
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- Unabridged
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The Thirty Years War devastated seventeenth-century Europe, killing nearly a quarter of all Germans and laying waste to towns and countryside alike. Peter Wilson offers the first new history in a generation of a horrifying conflict that transformed the map of the modern world.
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Best Single-Volume History of the 30 Years' War
- By Amazon Customer on 10-09-23
By: Peter H. Wilson
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Grant
- By: Ron Chernow
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Ulysses S. Grant's life has typically been misunderstood. All too often he is caricatured as a chronic loser and an inept businessman or as the triumphant but brutal Union general of the Civil War. But these stereotypes don't come close to capturing him, as Chernow reveals in his masterful biography, the first to provide a complete understanding of the general and president whose fortunes rose and fell with dizzying speed and frequency.
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Excellent Book (BUT WHERE IS THE PDF FILES)????
- By Amazon Customer on 10-25-17
By: Ron Chernow
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What listeners say about On the Psychology of Military Incompetence
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Kiki St. Hilaire
- 05-01-24
History
Every person in the military or those fascinated with it needs to read this. You will not find a better example of criticism of military comand for modern times,
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- Michael Harrison
- 01-12-24
In depth review of military mindset
An in-depth review of many of the debacles that have punctuated wars. Not surprisingly the chaos of battle has crystallized the picture of poor leadership. And although hindsight is clearer, the personality type of those who lead exacerbates the situation with subpar people seeking to fulfill personal issues at the expense of others lives.
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