About this item
Using the same engrossing anecdotal format that has proved so popular in Profiles in Audacity, Alan Axelrod now turns to the dark side of audacious decision-making: those choices that, in retrospect, were shockingly wrongheaded. Although Axelrod investigates some dumb decisions by stupid people and some evil decisions by evil people, the overwhelming majority of these decisions were made by good, smart people whose poor judgment produced disastrous, often irreversible results. The 35 compelling and often poignant stories, which range from ancient times to today, include: The Trojan Horse; the Children’s Crusade; the sailing of the Titanic, and the false belief that it just couldn’t sink; 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.
About the Author
I am the author of some 150 books on leadership, management, careers, history, military history, corporate history, career, general business, and other nonfiction. After receiving my Ph.D. in English (specializing in early American literature and culture) from the University of Iowa in 1979, I taught early American literature and culture at Lake Forest College (Lake Forest, Illinois) and at Furman University (Greenville, South Carolina) . I was an editor and scholar with the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum (Winterthur, Delaware) , an institution specializing in the history and material culture of America prior to 1832. I was associate editor at Van Nostrand Reinhold (New York) , senior editor at Abbeville Press (New York) , and vice president of Zenda, Inc. (New York and Nashville) , a consulting firm to museums and cultural institutions. In 1994, I became director of development (senior acquisitions editor) for Turner Publishing, Inc. (Atlanta) , a subsidiary of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., and in 1997, I founded The Ian Samuel Group, Inc., a consulting, creative services, editing, and online content provider in Atlanta.I have been a creative consultant (and on-camera personality) for The Wild West television documentary series (Warner Bros., 1993) , Civil War Journal (A&E Network, 1994) , "The American Experience" series (PBS, 2016) , and The Discovery Channel, and he has appeared on MSNBC, CNN, CNNfn, CNBC, Fox Network affiliates in Philadelphia and Atlanta, and numerous radio news and talk programs, including National Public Radio. He and his work have been featured in BusinessWeek, Fortune, Men's Health, Cosmopolitan, Inc., Atlanta Business Chronicle, and many newspapers, including Atlanta Journal-Constitution and USA Today. Axelrod has served as consultant for the Margaret Woodbury Strong Museum (Rochester, New York) , the Airman Memorial Museum (Suitland, Maryland) , and the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum (Winterthur, Delaware) .
