Historical Leadership Quotes

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The first key to leadership was self-control, particularly the mastery of pride, which was something more difficult, he explained, to subdue than a wild lion and anger, which was more difficult to defeat than the greatest wrestler. He warned them that "if you can't swallow your pride, you can't lead.
Jack Weatherford (Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World)
Future Politics Effecting change in national politics was mostly a matter of making better use of online forums, encouraging voters to press forth with hard questions, providing statistics and solutions. Direct-to-voter referendums became an increasingly common way of effecting national policy. If Congress were deadlocked over a particular issue, the voters would be asked to make up their minds for them in the form of an online referendum.
Nancy Omeara (The Most Popular President Who Ever Lived [So Far])
History, too, has a penchant for giving birth to itself over and over again, and those whom it appoints agents of change and progress do not always accept their destinies willingly.
Aberjhani (Splendid Literarium: A Treasury of Stories, Aphorisms, Poems, and Essays)
The leaders and followers of the Harlem Renaissance were every bit as intent on using Black culture to help make the United States a more functional democracy as they were on employing Black culture to 'vindicate' Black people.
Aberjhani (Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance (Facts on File Library of American History))
A leader is a shield to the people
Joel Hayward (The Leadership of Muhammad: A Historical Reconstruction)
It is better for a leader to make a mistake in forgiving than to make it in punishing.
Joel Hayward (The Leadership of Muhammad: A Historical Reconstruction)
Allah's Messenger ﷺ fought [with us] in severe heat, struggling on our long journey, against the desert and the great strength of the enemy.
Joel Hayward (The Leadership of Muhammad: A Historical Reconstruction)
O Messenger of Allah! Shall I tie [the camel’s leg], or leave it loose and trust in Allah?" He said: “Tie it and put your trust in Allah.
Joel Hayward (The Leadership of Muhammad: A Historical Reconstruction)
QUALITY leadership is neither the product of one great individual nor the result of odd historical accidents. Rather, it comes from deeply bred traditions and communities that shape and mold talented and gifted persons. Without a vibrant tradition of resistance passed on to new generations, there can be no nurturing of a collective and critical consciousness—only professional conscientiousness survives.
Cornel West (Race Matters)
It was through Allah’s mercy that you [Muhammad] have been able to deal with them so gently. If you had been stern and hard-hearted, they would surely have dispersed from around you.
Joel Hayward (The Leadership of Muhammad: A Historical Reconstruction)
This isn’t a matter for the eyes, it is a matter for the heart. Many signs point to a growing historical consciousness among the American people. I trust this is so. It is useful to remember that history is to the nation as memory is to the individual. As persons deprived of memory, they become disoriented and lost, not knowing where they have been and where they are going. So a nation denied a conception of the past will be disabled in dealing with its present and its future. When I’m depressed, I ascribe our behavior to stupidity, the stupidity of our leadership, the stupidity of our culture.
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.
As a man of deep faith, Muhammad embraced and taught a theocentric understanding of leadership; that is, he believed that ultimately God chooses and puts in place all leaders, regardless of the specific procedure of a person’s appointment to a leadership role within a community or army.
Joel Hayward (The Leadership of Muhammad: A Historical Reconstruction)
The path to the ethnic democratization of American society is through its culture, that is to say through its cultural apparatus, which comprises the eyes, the ears, and the "mind" of capitalism and is twentieth-century voice to the world. Thus to democratize the cultural apparatus is tantamount to revolutionizing American society itself into the living realization of its professed ideas. Seeing the problem in another way, to revolutionize the cultural apparatus is to deal fundamentally with the unsolved American question of nationality--Which group speaks for America and for the glorification of which ethnic image? Either all group images speak for themselves and for the nation, or American nationality will never be determined.
Harold Cruse (The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual: A Historical Analysis of the Failure of Black Leadership (New York Review Books Classics))
In America, the materio-economic conditions relate to a societal, multi-group existence in a way never before know in world history. American Negro nationalism can never create its own values, find its revolutionary significance, define its political and economic goals, until Negro intellectuals take up the cudgels against the cultural imperialism practiced in all of its manifold ramifications on the Negro within American culture. But this kind of revolution would have to be predicated on the recognition that the cultural and artistic originality of the American nation is founded, historically, on the ingredients of a black aesthetic and artistic base.
Harold Cruse (The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual: A Historical Analysis of the Failure of Black Leadership (New York Review Books Classics))
Even on social and cultural matters Muhammad liked to engage with people and hear views, routinely publicly praising the view of the person who initiated the discussion or whose opinion eventually prevailed, even if it had differed from his own. He delighted in good ideas, and made sure everyone knew who had advanced them, without claiming them as his own. He believed that credit should go to whom it was due.
Joel Hayward (The Leadership of Muhammad: A Historical Reconstruction)
Muhammad was gentle and flexible when he recognized sometimes that a greater good might be accomplished by releasing someone from a vow. When a young man happened to tell him that his pledge to emigrate with him (presumably to Medina) had made his parents cry, he humanely said: “Go back to them, and make them smile just as you had made them weep.
Joel Hayward (The Leadership of Muhammad: A Historical Reconstruction)
As much as Henry Kissinger wanted to attribute historical movement to impersonal forces, he too conceded to "the difference personalities make".
Walter Isaacson (American Sketches: Great Leaders, Creative Thinkers, and Heroes of a Hurricane)
the most crucial ingredient in a team that achieves and sustains historic greatness is the character of the player who leads it.
Sam Walker (The Captain Class: A New Theory of Leadership)
Emails are viewed as an essential historical record of an organization. A record that cannot be expunged must be created with care or not created at all.
Kent Alan Robinson (UnSend: Email, text, and social media disasters...and how to avoid them)
As a prophet and communal leader, Muhammad was entitled to special treatment, such as eating better while campaigning with his men. Yet he ate only what his warriors ate and suffered privations — intense heat, hunger and thirst, exhaustion and discomfort — equally with them. When he led a force of slightly over three hundred warriors to Badr in March 624, for example, they had only seventy camels between them. Three or four men therefore rode cramped on each camel. Muhammad asked for no preferential treatment, even though no one would have begrudged him the right to ride alone, and he uncomfortably shared his camel with ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib and Zayd ibn Harithah (some sources say Marthad ibn Abi Marthad al-Ghanawi).
Joel Hayward (The Leadership of Muhammad: A Historical Reconstruction)
We imagine the villains of history as masterminds of horror. This happens because we learn about them from history books, which weave narratives that retrospectively imbue events with logic, making them seem predetermined. Historians and their readers bring an unavoidable perception bias to the story: if a historical event caused shocking destruction, then the person behind this event must have been a correspondingly giant monster. Terrifying as it is to contemplate the catastrophes of the twentieth century, it would be even more frightening to imagine that humanity had stumbled unthinkingly into its darkest moments. But a reading of contemporaneous accounts will show that both Hitler and Stalin struck many of their countrymen as men of limited ability, education, and imagination—and, indeed, as being incompetent in government and military leadership. Contrary to popular wisdom, they were not political savants, possessed of one extraordinary talent that brought them to power. It was, rather, the blunt instrument of reassuring ignorance that propelled their rise in a frighteningly complex world.
Masha Gessen (Surviving Autocracy)
the experience of others becomes invaluable. It acts as a shortcut to bypass the long and painful process of trial and error. Indeed, all wise leaders learn from others, both contemporary and historical.
Chris Brady (Leadership Lessons from the Age of Fighting Sail)
As a religious leader, Jesus was an ardent advocate of nonviolence. He scrupulously avoided involvement in either military or political leadership, which historically had been associated with organized violence for win-lose gain. Six
Jay Snelson (Taming the Violence of Faith: Win-Win Solutions for Our World in Crisis)
The Marxist truth of democratic centralism is that the Party directive coming from higher leadership must be carried out. Because the Party’s highest leader is he who has firmly established himself as a Marxist through a long period of movements and theoretical debates.
Charu Mazumder (Historic Eight Documents)
It’s true that historical memory about female leadership empowered later women like Margery Kempe to preach, teach, and lead. But it’s also true that patriarchal beliefs about the inferiority and impurity of female bodies made it more difficult for women to exercise these spiritual gifts.
Beth Allison Barr (The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth)
in towns and villages throughout the Ukraine, several thousand Jews were being murdered by anti-Bolshevik Whites, whose historic anti-Semitism, combining with a new hatred of the noted Jewish presence among the Bolshevik leadership, renewed the violent pogroms of a decade and a half earlier.
Martin Gilbert (The First World War: A Complete History)
The Cultural Revolution was Mao’s second attempt to become the historical pivot around which the socialist universe revolved. Lenin had carried out the Great October Socialist Revolution, setting a precedent for the proletariat of the whole world. But modern revisionists like Khrushchev had usurped the leadership of the party, leading the Soviet Union back on the road of capitalist restoration.
Frank Dikötter (The Cultural Revolution: A People's History, 1962-1976)
Jesus’ example of servant leadership sets him apart from so many historical religious leaders. He was not a God who lorded it over his followers and demanded they follow him or coerced their obedience through authoritarianism and fear. Instead, he called them to the excellence of holiness and yet lovingly served them in order to win their hearts and show them the means of reaching others’ hearts as well.
Sally Clarkson (The Ministry of Motherhood: Following Christ's Example in Reaching the Hearts of Our Children)
The government must realize that it is the leader and not the slave of public opinion; that public opinion is not a static thing to be discovered and classified by public-opinion polls as plants are by botanists, but that it is a dynamic, ever changing entity to be continuously created and recreated by informed and responsible leadership; that it is the historic mission of the government to assert that leadership lest it be the demagogue who asserts it.
Hans J. Morgenthau (Politics Among Nations)
Side by side with the limitless possibilities opened up by the new technologies, reflection about international order must include the internal dangers of societies driven by mass consensus, deprived of the context and foresight needed on terms compatible with their historical character. In every other era, this has been considered the essence of leadership; in our own, it risks being reduced to a series of slogans designed to capture immediate short-term approbation. Foreign policy is in danger of turning into a subdivision of domestic politics instead of an exercise in shaping the future. If the major countries conduct their policies in this manner internally, their relations on the international stage will suffer concomitant distortions. The search for perspective may well be replaced by a hardening of differences, statesmanship by posturing. As diplomacy is transformed into gestures geared toward passions, the search for equilibrium risks giving way to a testing of limits.
Henry Kissinger (World Order: Reflections on the Character of Nations and the Course of History)
As the human species flirts with its own self-extinction, whether through weapons of mass destruction or environmental degradation, the world urgently needs this global institution to be rational, historically minded, pluralistically respectful, committed to peace, a tribune of justice, and a champion of the equality of women. That Vatican II occurred at all is enough to validate, if not in belief in the Holy Spirit, the hope that this great institution can survive the temporary moral collapse of its leadership.
James Carroll (The Truth at the Heart of the Lie: How the Catholic Church Lost Its Soul)
Throughout his political career, Roosevelt’s conception of leadership had been built upon a narrative of the embattled hero (armed with courage, spunk, honor, and truth) who sets out into the world to prove himself. It was a dragon-slaying notion of the hero-leader, and Roosevelt had the good fortune to strike the historical moment in which he could prove his mettle. Under the banner of “the Square Deal,” he would lead his country in a different kind of war, a progressive battle designed to restore fairness to America’s economic and social life.
Doris Kearns Goodwin (Leadership: In Turbulent Times)
Our greatest leaders are neither dreamers nor dictators: They are, like Jefferson, those who articulate national aspirations yet master the mechanics of influence and know when to depart from dogma. Jefferson had a remarkable capacity to marshal ideas and to move men, to balance the inspirational and the pragmatic. To realize his vision, he compromised and improvised. The willingness to do what he needed to do in a given moment makes him an elusive historical figure. Yet in the real world . . . his creative flexibility made him a transformative leader.
Jon Mecham
What interested these gnostics far more than past events attributed to the “historical Jesus” was the possibility of encountering the risen Christ in the present.49 The Gospel of Mary illustrates the contrast between orthodox and gnostic viewpoints. The account recalls what Mark relates: Now when he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene … She went and told those who had been with him, as they mourned and wept. But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it.50 As the Gospel of Mary opens, the disciples are mourning Jesus’ death and terrified for their own lives. Then Mary Magdalene stands up to encourage them, recalling Christ’s continual presence with them: “Do not weep, and do not grieve, and do not doubt; for his grace will be with you completely, and will protect you.”51 Peter invites Mary to “tell us the words of the Savior which you remember.”52 But to Peter’s surprise, Mary does not tell anecdotes from the past; instead, she explains that she has just seen the Lord in a vision received through the mind, and she goes on to tell what he revealed to her. When Mary finishes, she fell silent, since it was to this point that the Savior had spoken with her. But Andrew answered and said to the brethren, “Say what you will about what she has said. I, at least, do not believe that the Savior has said this. For certainly these teachings are strange ideas!”53 Peter agrees with Andrew, ridiculing the idea that Mary actually saw the Lord in her vision. Then, the story continues, Mary wept and said to Peter, “My brother Peter, what do you think? Do you think that I thought this up myself in my heart? Do you think I am lying about the Savior?” Levi answered and said to Peter, “Peter, you have always been hot-tempered … If the Savior made her worthy, who are you to reject her?”54 Finally Mary, vindicated, joins the other apostles as they go out to preach. Peter, apparently representing the orthodox position, looks to past events, suspicious of those who “see the Lord” in visions: Mary, representing the gnostic, claims to experience his continuing presence.55 These gnostics recognized that their theory, like the orthodox one, bore political implications. It suggests that whoever “sees the Lord” through inner vision can claim that his or her own authority equals, or surpasses, that of the Twelve—and of their successors. Consider the political implications of the Gospel of Mary: Peter and Andrew, here representing the leaders of the orthodox group, accuse Mary—the gnostic—of pretending to have seen the Lord in order to justify the strange ideas, fictions, and lies she invents and attributes to divine inspiration. Mary lacks the proper credentials for leadership, from the orthodox viewpoint: she is not one of the “twelve.” But as Mary stands up to Peter, so the gnostics who take her as their prototype challenge the authority of those priests and bishops who claim to be Peter’s successors.
The Gnostic Gospels (Modern Library 100 Best Nonfiction Books)
While no known record exists of the first entreaty to the Greenbrier, resort historian Robert Conte believes it came during the property’s 1956 North American summit, which brought Eisenhower together with the leaders of Canada and Mexico. While historic details are sketchy, Eisenhower appears to have met privately with railway president Walter Tuohy during the three-day summit to discuss the bunker. Then, the day after Eisenhower departed, the congressional leadership wrote him an opaque letter on March 28, 1956: “This is to introduce Mr. J. George Stewart, Architect of the Capitol, who is calling upon you on matters of vital importance to the Congress of the United States.
Garrett M. Graff (Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government's Secret Plan to Save Itself--While the Rest of Us Die)
Sir, you do understand that - officially - I'm not actually a centurion. I haven't even been assigned to a legion yet.' The general continued writing as he spoke. 'What was the name?' 'Corbulo, sir.' 'Corbulo, you have an officer's tunic and an officer's helmet; and you completed full officer training did you not?' Cassius nodded. He could easily recall every accursed test and drill. Though he'd excelled in the cerebral disciplines and somehow survived the endless marches and swims, he had rated poorly with sword in hand and had been repeatedly described as "lacking natural leadership ability." The academy's senior centurion had seemed quite relieved when the letter from the Service arrived. 'I did, sir, but it was felt I would be more suited to intelligence work than the legions, I really would prefer -' 'And you did take an oath? To Rome, the Army and the Emperor?' 'I did, sir, and of course I am happy to serve but -' The General finished the orders. He rolled the sheet up roughly and handed it to Cassius. 'Dismissed.' 'Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. I just have one final question.' The General was on his way back to his chair. He turned around and fixed Cassius with an impatient stare. 'Sir - how should I present myself to the troops? In terms of rank I mean.' 'They will assume you are a centurion, and I can see no practical reason whatsoever to disabuse them of that view.
Nick Brown (The Siege (Agent of Rome #1))
You can’t divide the country up into sections and have one rule for one section and one rule for another, and you can’t encourage people’s prejudices. You have to appeal to people’s best instincts, not their worst ones. You may win an election or so by doing the other, but it does a lot of harm to the country.” Truman understood something his legendary immediate predecessor had also grasped: that, as Franklin D. Roosevelt observed during the 1932 campaign, “The Presidency is not merely an administrative office. That’s the least of it. It is more than an engineering job, efficient or inefficient. It is pre-eminently a place of moral leadership. All our great Presidents were leaders of thought at times when certain historic ideas in the life of the nation had to be clarified.
Jon Meacham (The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels)
Dominant people and groups used power to: • declare what styles of music will and will not be used • determine what historical religious leaders looked like racially • decide which teachings to emphasize, and which to downplay • determine what religious education literature to use • decide which pictures or other art goes on the walls • declare who the spiritual heroes are and why • decide which aspects of history to remember and how to interpret the past • decide who is mature in their faith, and who is not • determine how much race and ethnicity will be talked about • declare that race is not important and will not be discussed • declare that the race of those in leadership does not matter • look at and treat the non-majority groups with paternalism • force others to assimilate or leave the congregation • determine the culture through which the faith will be interpreted • determine the culture through which faith will be practiced • make others feel powerless • remain ignorant about other cultures • determine if change will happen and the pace of change (almost always, slowly) • make people feel small, unimportant, like outsiders • deny having power
Michael O. Emerson (People of the Dream: Multiracial Congregations in the United States)
IN AN obscure journal, an article by Professor Tzvi Lamm of the Hebrew University charges that Israel has lost touch with reality.* Lamm’s view is that although the Zionist idea in its early stages seemed more dreamlike than practical, it was soberly realistic. Its leaders knew just how much power they had—or had not—and adhered closely to their goals. They were not hypnotized and paralyzed by their own slogans. Jewish leadership, and with it Israel as a whole, later became “autistic.” Autism is defined by Lamm as “the rejection of actual reality and its replacement by a reality which is a product of wish-fulfillment.” The victory of 1967 was the principal cause of this autism. Israelis began to speak of the West Bank of the Jordan as “liberated” territory. “The capture of lands aroused … a deep, sincere, emotional response to the territories … and to the historical events that took place in them: the graves of our patriarchs and matriarchs, paths along which the prophets once trod, hills for which the kings fought. But feelings cut off from present reality do not serve as a faithful guideline to a confused policy. This break with reality did not necessarily blind men to the fact that the territories were populated by Arabs, but it kept them from understanding that our settlement and taking possession of the territories would turn our existence as a state into a powerful pressure that would unite the Arab world and aggravate our insecure situation in a way previously unknown in our history.
Saul Bellow (To Jerusalem and Back)
On the one hand, the creeds do not speak of “the Jews” as responsible for the death of Jesus; he “suffered under” and “was crucified under” Pontius Pilate. On the other hand, the creeds do not mention Jesus’s Judaism at all. With the stress in some churches on Jesus’s divine sonship, the cross, the resurrection, and the redemptory role of saving humanity from sin and death, his historical connection to Judaism gets lost along with his very Jewish message of the kingdom of heaven. The problem is more than one of silence. In the popular Christian imagination, Jesus still remains defined, incorrectly and unfortunately, as “against” the Law, or at least against how it was understood at the time; as “against” the Temple as an institution and not simply against its first-century leadership; as “against” the people Israel but in favor of the Gentiles. Jesus becomes the rebel who, unlike every other Jew, practices social justice. He is the only one to speak with women; he is the only one who teaches nonviolent responses to oppression; he is the only one who cares about the “poor and the marginalized” (that phrase has become a litany in some Christian circles). Judaism becomes in such discourse a negative foil: whatever Jesus stands for, Judaism isn’t it; whatever Jesus is against, Judaism epitomizes the category. No wonder even today Jesus somehow looks “different” from “the Jews”: in the movies and artistic renderings, he’s blond and they are swarthy; he is cute and buff and they need rhinoplasty and Pilates. Jesus and his followers such as Peter and Mary Magdalene become identified as (proto-) Christian; only those who chose not to follow him remain “Jews.
Amy-Jill Levine (The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus)
Endorsement of the ordination of women is not the final step in the process, however. If we look at the denominations that approved women’s ordination from 1956–1976, we find that several of them, such as the United Methodist Church and the United Presbyterian Church (now called the Presbyterian Church–USA), have large contingents pressing for (a) the endorsement of homosexual conduct as morally valid and (b) the approval of homosexual ordination. In fact, the Episcopal Church on August 5, 2003, approved the appointment of an openly homosexual bishop.16 In more liberal denominations such as these, a predictable sequence has been seen (though so far only the Episcopal Church has followed the sequence to point 7): 1. abandoning biblical inerrancy 2. endorsing the ordination of women 3. abandoning the Bible’s teaching on male headship in marriage 4. excluding clergy who are opposed to women’s ordination 5. approving homosexual conduct as morally valid in some cases 6. approving homosexual ordination 7. ordaining homosexuals to high leadership positions in the denomination17 I am not arguing that all egalitarians are liberals. Some denominations have approved women’s ordination for other reasons, such as a long historical tradition and a strong emphasis on gifting by the Holy Spirit as the primary requirement for ministry (as in the Assemblies of God), or because of the dominant influence of an egalitarian leader and a high priority on relating effectively to the culture (as in the Willow Creek Association). But it is unquestionable that theological liberalism leads to the endorsement of women’s ordination. While not all egalitarians are liberals, all liberals are egalitarians. There is no theologically liberal denomination or seminary in the United States today that opposes women’s ordination. Liberalism and the approval of women’s ordination go hand in hand.
Wayne Grudem (Evangelical Feminism: A New Path to Liberalism?)
With the increasing recognition of Jews as the parasitic germs of these diseases, state after state was forced in the last years to take a position on this fateful question for nations. Imbued with the instinct of self-preservation, they had to take those measures which were suited to protect for good their own people against this international poison. Even if Bolshevik Russia is the concrete product of this Jewish infection, one should not forget that democratic capitalism creates the conditions for it. In this way, the Jews prepare what the same Jews execute in the second stage of this process. In the first stage, they deprive the majority of men of their rights and reduce them to helpless slaves. Or, as they themselves put it, they make them expropriated proletarians in order to spur them on, as a fanaticized mob, to destroy the foundations of their state. Later, this is followed by the extermination of their own national intelligentsia, and finally by the elimination of all cultural foundations that, as a thousand-year-old heritage, could provide these people with their inner worth or serve as a warning to the future. What remains after that is the beast in man and a Jewish class that, as parasites in leadership positions, will in the end destroy the fertile soil on which it thrives. On this process-which according to Mommsen results in the Jewish engineered decomposition of people and states-the young, awakening Europe has now declared war. Proud and honorable people in other parts of the world have allied themselves to it. They will be joined by hundreds of millions of oppressed men who, irrespective of how their present leaders may view this, will one day break their chains. The end of these liars will come, liars who claim to protect the world against a threatening domination but who actually only seek to save their own world-rule. We are now in the midst of this mighty, truly historic awakening of the people, partly as leading, acting, or performing men. On the one side stand the men of the democracies that form the heart of Jewish capitalism, with their whole dead weight of dusty theories of state, their parliamentary corruption, their outdated social order, their Jewish brain trusts, their Jewish newspapers, stock exchanges, and banks-a combination, a mix of political and economic racketeers of the worst sort; on their side, there is the Bolshevik state, that is, that number of brutish men over whom the Jew, as in the Soviet Union, wields his bloody whip. And on the other side stand those nations who fight for their freedom and independence, for the securing of their people’s daily bread. Adolf Hitler – speech to the Reichstag April 26, 1942
Adolf Hitler
American DEWAR FAMILY Cameron Dewar Ursula “Beep” Dewar, his sister Woody Dewar, his father Bella Dewar, his mother PESHKOV-JAKES FAMILY George Jakes Jacky Jakes, his mother Greg Peshkov, his father Lev Peshkov, his grandfather Marga, his grandmother MARQUAND FAMILY Verena Marquand Percy Marquand, her father Babe Lee, her mother CIA Florence Geary Tony Savino Tim Tedder, semiretired Keith Dorset OTHERS Maria Summers Joseph Hugo, FBI Larry Mawhinney, Pentagon Nelly Fordham, old flame of Greg Peshkov Dennis Wilson, aide to Bobby Kennedy Skip Dickerson, aide to Lyndon Johnson Leopold “Lee” Montgomery, reporter Herb Gould, television journalist on This Day Suzy Cannon, gossip reporter Frank Lindeman, television network owner REAL HISTORICAL CHARACTERS John F. Kennedy, thirty-fifth U.S. president Jackie, his wife Bobby Kennedy, his brother Dave Powers, assistant to President Kennedy Pierre Salinger, President Kennedy’s press officer Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference Lyndon B. Johnson, thirty-sixth U.S. president Richard Nixon, thirty-seventh U.S. president Jimmy Carter, thirty-ninth U.S. president Ronald Reagan, fortieth U.S. president George H. W. Bush, forty-first U.S. president British LECKWITH-WILLIAMS FAMILY Dave Williams Evie Williams, his sister Daisy Williams, his mother Lloyd Williams, M.P., his father Eth Leckwith, Dave’s grandmother MURRAY FAMILY Jasper Murray Anna Murray, his sister Eva Murray, his mother MUSICIANS IN THE GUARDSMEN AND PLUM NELLIE Lenny, Dave Williams’s cousin Lew, drummer Buzz, bass player Geoffrey, lead guitarist OTHERS Earl Fitzherbert, called Fitz Sam Cakebread, friend of Jasper Murray Byron Chesterfield (real name Brian Chesnowitz), music agent Hank Remington (real name Harry Riley), pop star Eric Chapman, record company executive German FRANCK FAMILY Rebecca Hoffmann Carla Franck, Rebecca’s adoptive mother Werner Franck, Rebecca’s adoptive father Walli Franck, son of Carla Lili Franck, daughter of Werner and Carla Maud von Ulrich, née Fitzherbert, Carla’s mother Hans Hoffmann, Rebecca’s husband OTHERS Bernd Held, schoolteacher Karolin Koontz, folksinger Odo Vossler, clergyman REAL HISTORICAL PEOPLE Walter Ulbricht, first secretary of the Socialist Unity Party (Communist) Erich Honecker, Ulbricht’s successor Egon Krenz, successor to Honecker Polish Stanislaw “Staz” Pawlak, army officer Lidka, girlfriend of Cam Dewar Danuta Gorski, Solidarity activist REAL HISTORICAL PEOPLE Anna Walentynowicz, crane driver Lech Wałesa, leader of the trade union Solidarity General Jaruzelski, prime minister Russian DVORKIN-PESHKOV FAMILY Tanya Dvorkin, journalist Dimka Dvorkin, Kremlin aide, Tanya’s twin brother Anya Dvorkin, their mother Grigori Peshkov, their grandfather Katerina Peshkov, their grandmother Vladimir, always called Volodya, their uncle Zoya, Volodya’s wife Nina, Dimka’s girlfriend OTHERS Daniil Antonov, features editor at TASS Pyotr Opotkin, features editor in chief Vasili Yenkov, dissident Natalya Smotrov, official in the Foreign Ministry
Ken Follett (Edge of Eternity (The Century Trilogy, #3))
Fascism rested not upon the truth of its doctrine but upon the leader’s mystical union with the historic destiny of his people, a notion related to romanticist ideas of national historic flowering and of individual artistic or spiritual genius, though fascism otherwise denied romanticism’s exaltation of unfettered personal creativity. The fascist leader wanted to bring his people into a higher realm of politics that they would experience sensually: the warmth of belonging to a race now fully aware of its identity, historic destiny, and power; the excitement of participating in a vast collective enterprise; the gratification of submerging oneself in a wave of shared feelings, and of sacrificing one’s petty concerns for the group’s good; and the thrill of domination. Fascism’s deliberate replacement of reasoned debate with immediate sensual experience transformed politics, as the exiled German cultural critic Walter Benjamin was the first to point out, into aesthetics. And the ultimate fascist aesthetic experience, Benjamin warned in 1936, was war. Fascist leaders made no secret of having no program. Mussolini exulted in that absence. “The Fasci di Combattimento,” Mussolini wrote in the “Postulates of the Fascist Program” of May 1920, “. . . do not feel tied to any particular doctrinal form.” A few months before he became prime minister of Italy, he replied truculently to a critic who demanded to know what his program was: “The democrats of Il Mondo want to know our program? It is to break the bones of the democrats of Il Mondo. And the sooner the better.” “The fist,” asserted a Fascist militant in 1920, “is the synthesis of our theory.” Mussolini liked to declare that he himself was the definition of Fascism. The will and leadership of a Duce was what a modern people needed, not a doctrine. Only in 1932, after he had been in power for ten years, and when he wanted to “normalize” his regime, did Mussolini expound Fascist doctrine, in an article (partly ghostwritten by the philosopher Giovanni Gentile) for the new Enciclopedia italiana. Power came first, then doctrine. Hannah Arendt observed that Mussolini “was probably the first party leader who consciously rejected a formal program and replaced it with inspired leadership and action alone.” Hitler did present a program (the 25 Points of February 1920), but he pronounced it immutable while ignoring many of its provisions. Though its anniversaries were celebrated, it was less a guide to action than a signal that debate had ceased within the party. In his first public address as chancellor, Hitler ridiculed those who say “show us the details of your program. I have refused ever to step before this Volk and make cheap promises.” Several consequences flowed from fascism’s special relationship to doctrine. It was the unquestioning zeal of the faithful that counted, more than his or her reasoned assent. Programs were casually fluid. The relationship between intellectuals and a movement that despised thought was even more awkward than the notoriously prickly relationship of intellectual fellow travelers with communism. Many intellectuals associated with fascism’s early days dropped away or even went into opposition as successful fascist movements made the compromises necessary to gain allies and power, or, alternatively, revealed its brutal anti-intellectualism. We will meet some of these intellectual dropouts as we go along. Fascism’s radical instrumentalization of truth explains why fascists never bothered to write any casuistical literature when they changed their program, as they did often and without compunction. Stalin was forever writing to prove that his policies accorded somehow with the principles of Marx and Lenin; Hitler and Mussolini never bothered with any such theoretical justification. Das Blut or la razza would determine who was right.
Robert O. Paxton (The Anatomy of Fascism)
We are witnessing the total collapse of a bad idea. Obamaism, a quasi-socialist commitment to a more powerful government at home and an abdication of American leadership around the world, is being exposed as a historic calamity. It is fueling domestic fear and global disorder and may well lead to a world war.
Michael Patrick Goodwin
post-war redomestication of women was the watchword in the wider culture. As a result, the 1950s historically reflect the period when a growing middle class enabled the most widespread imposition of the nineteenth-century Doctrine of Separate Spheres.24
Alan F. Johnson (How I Changed My Mind about Women in Leadership: Compelling Stories from Prominent Evangelicals)
It is impossible to make predictions—to say if the Islamic Republic will collapse or if it will survive in its current form. Certainly its current form isn’t the one it took in the immediate wake of the revolution. Although Khamenei has been committed to safeguarding the revolution, he has also created a new theocracy—one that relies on the greed of the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij instead of the loyalty of its founding fathers. Khamenei has banished nearly all the clerics who held power when Ayatollah Khomeini was alive. Despite falling oil prices and economic sanctions, Khamenei had enough petro-dollar to satisfy his military base of support: the Guards and the Basij. The oil revenue has been the biggest deterrent to democracy in Iran, even though the windfall has transformed the fabric of Iranian society. The Iranian middle class, more than two-thirds of the population, relies on the revenue instead of contributing to economic growth, and thus has been less likely to fulfill a historic mission to create institutional reform. It has been incapable of placing “demands on Iranian leadership for political reform because of its small role in producing wealth, as in other developing countries. The regime is still an autocracy, to be sure, but democracy has been spreading at the grassroots level, even among members of the Basij and the children of Iran’s rulers. The desire for moderation goes beyond a special class. As I am writing these lines, Khamenei’s followers are shifting alliances and building new coalitions. Civil society, despite the repression it has long endured, has turned into a dynamic force. Khamenei still has the final word in Iranian politics, but the country’s political culture is not monolithic. Like Ayatollah Khomeini, who claimed he had to drink the cup of poison in order to end the war with Iraq, Khamenei has been forced to compromise. The fact that he signed off on Rohani’s historic effort to improve ties with the United States signals that the regime is moving in a different direction, and that further compromises are possible.
Nazila Fathi (The Lonely War)
All great movements in the political and historical field have been created, have been provoked not by that sort of a negative feeling, but always by a local victory. And this is true from the very beginning. If we appreciate, for example, why we have during two years the great revolt of the slaves in the Roman Empire, under the leadership of Spartacus, it is not because slaves have the feeling of injustice and so on. Because they always have that, it’s their experience day after day. It is rather because in one small place a small group of slaves finds new means finally to create a victory—a small victory, a local victory. And after that, as the effect of enthusiasm, of affirmation, of the possibility of something new, we have the possibility of the creation of a new subjectivity at the general level.
Anonymous
For professionals who use massage in their work, and especially for developing their leadership, historical literacy is imperative.
Robert Noah Calvert (The History of Massage: An Illustrated Survey from around the World)
Over a century now after Dr. William Gorgas wiped Yellow Fever out of Havana and Panama, and by that out of an entire continent, and more than half a century after Fred Lowe Soper led the eradication of Anopheles gambiae out of Northeast Brazil, their names are unknown, their carefully-detailed, boots-on-the-ground methods that they described in detail to leave expressly for generations to study and learn from to apply to malaria - and specifically they both had the desire for the destruction of malaria in Africa on their minds - is unread. The mistakes they warned about, the assumptions that they discovered to be useless and ineffectual in the field against disease-bearing mosquitoes are repeated today, while what Gorgas and Soper found to be effective and efficient in real-life conditions are routinely ignored or unknown, avoidable errors blithely doomed to be repeated thanks to modern ignorance of their incredibly important and transformative historical successes in public health. In the battles against malaria, to be ignorant of Gorgas’ and Soper's work in eradicating the mosquito that carries it is to be hobbled by the lack of hard-earned field knowledge, practical and effective discoveries that remain completely relevant and critical to success in eradicating malaria today.
T.K. Naliaka
The idea of “character” as used by personality analysts is not altogether clear, but its usefulness is scarcely in doubt. There seems to be general agreement on four attributes. First, character is a historical product. “The character as a whole,” writes Fenichel, “reflects the individual’s historical development.”[8] Character is the “ego’s habitual ways of reacting.” In this sense every individual has a unique character.
Philip Selznick (Leadership in Administration: A Sociological Interpretation)
CIOs must shift focus from internal customers to external customers. IT must shift focus from providing service to providing value. Everything is moving to the cloud; CIOs must assume a “cloud first” mentality. Innovation is more than new technology—it's also about change management, enabling new processes, and hiring the best talent. CIOs need to work closely with the business to create innovation that drives real value. CEOs expect more from their CIOs than ever before. CIOs must deliver on a higher set of expectations, or they will be replaced. CIOs must shift from a measurement mentality to a value creation mentality. CIOs must shift focus from historical data to real-time information. Today, IT is all about creating real business value. All business is digital. All business. When IT has a bad day, the business has a bad day. IT still matters. It matters to the top line and to the bottom line. IT matters more than ever because IT is everywhere in the business. Without IT, you're out of business. CIOs need to step up, raise the bar, and elevate their game to meet the challenges of the big shift. I hope you enjoy reading this book and find it a useful addition to your library. It's the fourth book I've authored on the topic of
Hunter Muller (The Big Shift in IT Leadership: How Great CIOs Leverage the Power of Technology for Strategic Business Growth in the Customer-Centric Economy (Wiley CIO))
The advantages of using account of the legal defense DUI professional According to a DUI or DWI they have very high values, and can be much more difficult, if not able to qualified lawyer in these types of services. It important to get the services of professionals who are familiar with the course of DUI criminal record because the team is almost certainly best, highest paid on the common law also working for many years in a row, and he is almost certain that the officials involved to enforce the law and choose the most effective way. The consumption can peak at promoting the method of blood flow to help ease and the minimum number of punches than likely. Even if you do not want the removal of a fence of a demo, it is deliberately allowed to produce only for the ingredients so suddenly that the interest will be at least in his imprisonment and the decision of the necessary business expense. Education Lawyer, worth DUI, because they understand the rules on the details of the DUI. Great leadership only recognizes attorneys who offer surgery that seemed to bend the lowest possible cost. Field sobriety tests are defense without success, and when the lawyer to provide classroom-oriented, to the surprise of identifying the brain decides what industry breathalyzer sobriety vote or still under investigation. Trying to fight against DUI private value, it may be impossible for the layman is that much of the Berufsrecht did. DUI lawyer can be a file with the management consultants can be used or deny the accuracy of the successful management of blood or urine witnesses. Almost always one day, you can not help learning tool. If there is a case where the amount, solid, is the legal adviser to shock and other consultants witnesses are willing to cut portions and finds out she has some tire testing and influence. Being part of the time, problems with eating problems and more experience DUI attorney in looks secrets and created. The idea that the lawyer is suddenly more than the end result of controlling historical significance of countless people do not share the court made. It very appropriate, qualified, but two at the end of every little thing that you do not agree even repentance and uses for what was happening right opportunity. It can not be argued, perhaps, costs, what seems to be one that includes many just go to the airport to record driving under the influence, but their professional experience and meetings, both issues related to diversity, Lange random taxation measures. Many people today claim that the market is in DUI cases, of course, exhausted, and are a lawyer, go to their rights in the region.
DWI Lawyer
The historical principles of librarianship—universal access to information, individual privacy, freedom of expression, and truth above all else—are as necessary now as they have ever been and must persist. At the same time, the balance of library leadership needs to swing more forcefully toward the new or libraries will fade in their significance to the American public.
John Palfrey (BiblioTech: Why Libraries Matter More Than Ever in the Age of Google)
David strode through the battle raging between his men and the castle defenders in the courtyard and headed straight for the keep, intent on his goal. The castle would fall quickly. The defenders lacked leadership and were in disarray. His only concern was whether the castle had a secret tunnel for escape. During the siege, he had spread his men out through the fields surrounding the fortress to keep watch. But he had concentrated his forces for the attack and most were now inside the castle. If there was a tunnel, he must secure the widow and her daughters before they had a chance to escape. He did not relish the idea of having to chase them down through the fields with dogs. The defenders had foolishly waited too long to withdraw to the keep, and most were caught in the courtyard when David’s men burst through the gate. He barely spared them a glance as he ran up the steps of the keep. With several of his warriors at his back, he burst through the doors brandishing his sword. He paused inside the entrance to hall. Women and children were screaming, and the few Blackadder warriors who had made it inside were overturning tables in a useless attempt to set up a defense. “If ye hope for mercy, drop your weapons,” David shouted, making his voice heard above the chaos. He locked gazes with the men who hesitated to obey his order until every weapon clanked to the floor, then he swept his gaze over the women. Their clothing confirmed what he’d known the moment he entered the hall. Blackadder’s widow was not in the room. “Where is she?” he demanded of the closest Blackadder man. “Who, m’lord?” the man said, shifting his gaze to the side. “Your mistress!” David picked him up by the front of his tunic and leaned in close. “Tell me now.” “In her bedchamber,” the man squeaked, pointing to an arched doorway. “’Tis up the stairs.” David caught a sudden whiff of urine and dropped the man to the floor in disgust. The wretch had wet himself. “Take him to the dungeon,” he ordered. The coward had given up his mistress far too easily.
Margaret Mallory (Captured by a Laird (The Douglas Legacy, #1))
Biology, physiology, and anatomy have less to do with our chairs than pharaohs, kings, and executives,” she writes. One kind of historical chair, called the “klismos” by historians, evolved primarily as an historical expression of status and rank. Setting a body higher than and apart from other people, in an individual structure with rigid, flat planes—a throne, if you will—evolved as a way of recognizing an individual’s power or leadership, with the earliest known models dating to ancient Egypt and southeastern Europe. Their use as an expression of authority continued through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and the endurance of this symbolism lives on as metaphor in many contemporary leadership titles; to chair the committee or the department, or to sit in the designated “director’s chair” on a film set, is still to hold a seat of power.
Sara Hendren (What Can a Body Do?: How We Meet the Built World)
Lamentations The book of Lamentations in the English Bible takes its name from the Greek and Latin versions, which translate the Hebrew qinoth “dirges, laments.” The Hebrew Bible names a book by the first word or phrase. Lamentations is one of the “megilloth,” or five scrolls that are read during various of the annual festivals. Lamentations has traditionally been read in observation of Tish b’av (ninth of the month ‘Av), the anniversary of the destruction of Jerusalem. While Tish b’av is a later development, it is a likely extension of the communal mourning over Jerusalem reflected in Jer 41:5; Zec 7:3–5; 8:19. Historical Setting Lamentations focuses on the trauma experienced by the kingdom of Judah at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians. In 604 BC Nebuchadnezzar’s military confronted the western states, and Babylonian power was brought to bear on Judah. In less than a decade the devastation of Judah had begun with the first deportation. Typical of ancient Near Eastern warfare, if time permitted, cities fortified as Jerusalem was were often “softened” by siege warfare. This protracted strangulation of a city deprived the defenders and citizenry of food and often of water. Thirst and starvation would decimate the besieged population. Though from an earlier period, the art and inscriptions of the Assyrian palaces provide insight into the horrors of the siege. They also show the intensity of devastation once the defenses were broken down. There was no theory of “separation of church and state” in the ancient Near East. The city-state was viewed as the realm of a patron deity. Palace and temple were intimately connected functionally and were often closely situated physically. One implication of this view is that in order to vanquish a city-state, not only must the military be defeated and the royal court put out of commission (either by killing the king or rendering him unfit to reign—often by mutilation), but the temple and its accoutrements were to be looted and put out of commission. Putting the god under submission was just as important as putting the king and his military under submission. When the kingdom of Judah fell to the Babylonian Empire (586 BC), the temple and the palace were destroyed, along with the rest of the capital city, and the leadership and much of the population were carried away captive.
Anonymous (NIV, Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible: Bringing to Life the Ancient World of Scripture)
On the day of King Abdullah’s death, King Salman appeared to resolve this difficult issue by appointing his nephew, the 55-year-old Prince Mohammed bin Naif or MBN to be the deputy crown prince and third in line of succession. This move to a third-generation prince was an historic event, which effectively ended the political hopes of Abdulaziz’s few remaining sons. Many in Riyadh believed that by making the transition to third-generation leadership while a second-generation king was still on the throne to supervise the process, King Salman had taken the most important step of his reign on his first day in office.
David Rundell (Vision or Mirage: Saudi Arabia at the Crossroads)
The continuity of spiritual leadership has resulted in several key differences between the Ismailis and other Shi‘i communities. The unifying voice of the Imam at the apex of this culturally diverse community has engendered an interpretation of Islam that speaks to contemporary life, its changing challenges and realities. Maintaining a historic adherence to the Ja‘fari madhhab, while also adhering to Sufi principles of personal quest, the Ismailis seek a balance between external acts of faith (zahir) and their inner spiritual meaning (batin).
Rizwan Mawani (Beyond the Mosque: Diverse Spaces of Muslim Worship (World of Islam))
One of the problems with democracy is that there are historical moments when it is difficult to reconcile necessity and popularity.
Luigina Sgarro
A Radically Different View of Christianity Cho’s model is perfectly designed for a culture that has little or no historical connection to evangelical Christianity.
Larry Osborne (Sticky Church (Leadership Network Innovation Series Book 6))
Humans could learn a lot from canines. The great tragedy among humans is that people have often been assigned to or seen as qualified for alpha positions—as CEOs, quarterbacks, coaches, directors of film, presidents of colleges or countries—not necessarily on the basis of innate leadership traits but, historically, on the basis of having been born to the dominant caste or the dominant gender or to the right family within the dominant caste, the assumption being that only those from a certain caste or gender or religion or national origin have the innate capacity or deservedness to be leaders.
Isabel Wilkerson (Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents)
The proper social role of the highly able Endogenous personality is not as leader. Indeed, the Endogenous personality should be excluded from leadership as he will tend to lack the desire to cooperate with or care for the feelings of others. His role should be as an intuitive/ inspired ‘adviser’ of rulers. Adviser-of-rulers is a term which should be taken to include various types of prophet, shaman, genius, wizard, hermit, and holy fool – the Socrates of the early Platonic dialogues is an historical example, as is Diogenes, the Cynic, of Sinope (c.412-323 BC), who lived in a barrel and is supposed to have snubbed Alexander the Great (without being punished), or even the Fool character in Shakespeare plays. These are extremes; but the description of Endogenous personality and of an ‘inner orientation’ also applies to most historical examples of creative genius. The Endogenous personality – therefore – does not (as most men) seek primarily for social, sexual or economic success; instead the Endogenous personality wants to live by his inner imperatives. The way it is supposed-to-work, the ‘deal’, the ‘social contract’; is that the Endogenous personality, by his non-social orientation, is working for the benefit of society as a whole; at the cost of his not competing in the usual status competitions within that society. His ‘reward’ is simply to be allowed, or – better – actively enabled, to have the minimal necessary sustenance, psychological support (principally being ‘left alone’ and not harassed or molested; but ideally sustained by his family, spouse, patron or the like) to be somehow providedwith the time and space and wherewithal to do his work and communicate the outcome. For the Endogenous personality, this is its own reward.
Edward Dutton (The Genius Famine: Why We Need Geniuses, Why They're Dying Out, Why We Must Rescue Them)
The visionary impulse giving rise to apocalyptic eschatology tends to be strongest among those embracing the prophetic promise of Yahweh's restoration of the faithful but at the same time witnessing the political and cultic structures of their nation falling into the hands of adversaries, thereby vitiating the possibility of fulfillment within the existing order of things. The pragmatic or realistic impulse tends to be strongest among those exercising control over political and religious structures; they often actively oppose the visionaries, viewing them as a threat to their position of leadership.
Paul D. Hanson (The Dawn of Apocalyptic: The Historical and Sociological Roots of Jewish Apocalyptic Eschatology)
If a leader merely carried out what historical forces made inevitable, it is not the person that mattered, it is the moment in time
Nigel Hamilton
With the coal strike, Theodore Roosevelt had grasped the historical moment that signaled the clear emergence of a domestic purpose for his young administration—to restrain the rampant consolidation of corporate wealth that had developed in the wake of the Industrial Revolution. The speed and size of that consolidation, Roosevelt powerfully felt, “accentuates the need of the Government having some power of supervision and regulation over such corporations.
Doris Kearns Goodwin (Leadership: In Turbulent Times)
Role Modeling and Meaningful Mentors Given the importance of socialization in leadership education and the power of analogue to organize people's approaches, one important facet of training the next generation of impact investors is to celebrate role models. Historically business schools have exposed students to leading businesspeople who have exemplified a model life in which their business success was followed by a retirement enriched by charity work. Now the increasing popularity on business school campuses of impact investing pioneers is offering an alternative model for students to follow. Schools that recognize the importance of mentoring and role modeling will need to identify additional opportunities to expose students to similarly forward-looking role models. Beyond the charismatic entrepreneurs, role models can also come from the leaders of networks, standard-setting bodies and other industry-builders who will increasingly represent high-leverage leadership in the impact investing industry's next phase.
Antony Bugg-Levine (Impact Investing: Transforming How We Make Money While Making a Difference)
From this basis, Boyd sets out to develop a normative view on a design for command and control. As in Patterns of Conflict, he starts with some ‘samples from historical environment’, offering nine citations from nine practitioners, including from himself (see Box 6.1):6 Sun Tzu (around 400 BC) Probe enemy strength to unmask his strengths, weaknesses, patterns of movement and intentions. Shape enemy’s perception of world to manipulate/undermine his plans and actions. Employ Cheng/Ch’I maneuvers to quickly and unexpectedly hurl strength against weaknesses. Bourcet (1764–71) A plan ought to have several branches . . . One should . . . mislead the enemy and make him imagine that the main effort is coming at some other part. And . . . one must be ready to profit by a second or third branch of the plan without giving one’s enemy time to consider it. Napoleon (early 1800s) Strategy is the art of making use of time and space. I am less chary of the latter than the former. Space we can recover, time never. I may lose a battle, but I shall never lose a minute. The whole art of war consists in a well-reasoned and circumspect defensive, followed by rapid and audacious attack. Clausewitz (1832) Friction (which includes the interaction of many factors, such as uncertainty, psychological/moral forces and effects, etc.) impedes activity. Friction is the only concept that more or less corresponds to the factors that distinguish real war from war on paper. In this sense, friction represents the climate or atmosphere of war. Jomini (1836) By free and rapid movements carry bulk of the forces (successively) against fractions of the enemy. N.B. Forrest (1860s) Git thar the fustest with the mostest. Blumentritt (1947) The entire operational and tactical leadership method hinged upon . . . rapid concise assessment of situations, . . . and quick decision and quick execution, on the principle: each minute ahead of the enemy is an advantage. Balck (1980) Emphasis upon creation of implicit connections or bonds based upon trust, not mistrust, that permit wide freedom for subordinates to exercise imagination and initiative – yet harmonize within intent of superior commanders. Benefit: internal simplicity that permits rapid adaptability. Yours truly Operate inside adversary’s observation-orientation-decision-action loops to enmesh adversary in a world of uncertainty, doubt, mistrust, confusion, disorder, fear, panic, chaos . . . and/or fold adversary back inside himself so that he cannot cope with events/efforts as they unfold.
Frans P.B. Osinga (Science, Strategy and War: The Strategic Theory of John Boyd (Strategy and History))
We still don’t have the full story on Benghazi, but thanks to the dogged efforts of Judicial Watch we know a lot more and are in a position to continue to crack open the Benghazi cover-up. Take the email that showed the military was prepared, indeed was in the process of launching timely assistance that could have made a difference, at least at the CIA annex where two Americans died. The Washington Examiner correctly noted that the email “casts doubt on previous testimony from high level officials, several of whom suggested there was never any kind of military unit that could have been in a position to mount a rescue mission during the hours-long attack on Benghazi.” All this goes to underscore the value of Judicial Watch’s independent watchdog activities and our leadership in forcing truth and accountability over the Benghazi scandal. The lies and inaction by President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Susan Rice (who is now Obama’s national security adviser) were monstrous. Rather than tell the truth, and risk political blowback for the Libya mess and the lack of security, the Obama administration abandoned those under fire and pretended that the attack had nothing to do with terrorism. Judicial Watch saw through the lies and began what has become the most nationally significant investigation ever by a non-governmental entity. Our Benghazi FOIA requests and subsequent lawsuits changed history. Our disclosure of White House records confirming that top political operatives at the White House concocted the talking points used by Susan Rice to mislead the American people in order save Obama’s reelection prospects rocked Washington. These smoking-gun documents embarrassed all of Congress and forced Speaker John Boehner to appoint the House Select Committee on Benghazi. And, as you’ll see, the pressure from our Benghazi litigation led to the disclosure of the Clinton email scandal, the historical ramifications of which we are now witnessing. If the American people had known the truth—that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and other top administration officials knew that the Benghazi attack was an al-Qaeda terrorist attack from the get-go—and yet lied and covered this fact up—Mitt Romney might very well be president. Our Benghazi disclosures also show connections between the collapse in Libya and the ISIS war—and confirm that the US knew remarkable details about the transfer of arms from Benghazi to Syrian jihadists.
Tom Fitton (Clean House: Exposing Our Government's Secrets and Lies)
There are many who occasionally attend church and who are trying experimentally to be Christians, yet are unable to identify well or define accurately the central truths of Christian teaching. The knowledge they have of the Christian tradition may have come chiefly through hymns. Their strong and sincere feelings are not matched with serious biblical or historical reflection on those feelings. Religious feelings are, indeed, crucial to the deeper learning of Christian truth, but they easily become superficial and narcissistic if the mind of Christ is not a mentor to natural religious impulse. The loss of center in Christian education is arguably due to a serious default of pastoral leadership; when the teaching elder does not teach, the effect is felt throughout the entire Christian congregation.
Thomas C. Oden (Pastoral Theology: Essentials of Ministry)
Within this historic and optimistic future in mind, I have made no value judgment of the destiny bestowed on each nation. For all this, however, leadership matters; so do the institutional structures and the system of political governance.
Patrick Mendis (Peaceful War: How the Chinese Dream and the American Destiny Create a New Pacific World Order)
(a) Nationalism, in the form of the historicist idea that the state is the incarnation of the Spirit (or now, of the Blood) of the state-creating nation (or race); one chosen nation (now, the chosen race) is destined for world domination. (b) The state as the natural enemy of all other states must assert its existence in war. (c) The state is exempt from any kind of moral obligation; history, that is, historical success, is the sole judge; collective utility is the sole principle of personal conduct; propagandist lying and distortion of the truth is permissible. (d) The ‘ethical’ idea of war (total and collectivist), particularly of young nations against older ones; war, fate and fame as most desirable goods. (e) The creative rôle of the Great Man, the world-historical personality, the man of deep knowledge and great passion (now, the principle of leadership). (f) The ideal of the heroic life (‘live dangerously’) and of the ‘heroic man’ as opposed to the petty bourgeois and his life of shallow mediocrity.
Karl Popper (The Open Society and Its Enemies)
The Adams presidency, in fact, might be the classic example of the historical truism that inherited circumstances define the parameters within which presidential leadership takes shape, that history shapes presidents, rather than vice versa.
Joseph J. Ellis (Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation (Pulitzer Prize Winner))
I am convinced that the fourth industrial revolution will be every bit as powerful, impactful and historically important as the previous three. However, I have two primary concerns about factors that may limit the potential of the fourth industrial revolution to be effectively and cohesively realized. First, I feel that the required levels of leadership and understanding of the changes under way, across all sectors, are low when contrasted with the need to rethink our economic, social and political systems to respond to the fourth industrial revolution. As a result, both at the national and global levels, the requisite institutional framework to govern the diffusion of innovation and mitigate the disruption is inadequate at best and, at worst, absent altogether. Second, the world lacks a consistent, positive and common narrative that outlines the opportunities and challenges of the fourth industrial revolution, a narrative that is essential if we are to empower a diverse set of individuals and communities and avoid a popular backlash against the fundamental changes under way.
Klaus Schwab (The Fourth Industrial Revolution)
Leadership and our dependence on it (how and why we choose particular leaders) is a much misunderstood historical phenomenon.
Frank Herbert (Eye)
Google’s trucks would pull up to libraries and quietly walk away with boxes of books to be quickly scanned and returned. “If you don’t have a reason to talk about it, why talk about it?” Larry Page would argue, when confronted with pleas to publicly announce the existence of its program. The company’s lead lawyer on this described bluntly the roughshod attitude of his colleagues: “Google’s leadership doesn’t care terribly much about precedent or law.” In this case precedent was the centuries-old protections of intellectual property, and the consequences were a potential devastation of the publishing industry and all the writers who depend on it. In other words, Google had plotted an intellectual heist of historic proportions. What motivated Google in its pursuit? On one level, the answer is clear: To maintain dominance, Google’s search engine must be definitive. Here was a massive store of human knowledge waiting to be stockpiled and searched. On the other hand, there are less obvious motives: When the historian of technology George Dyson visited the Googleplex to give a talk, an engineer casually admitted, “We are not scanning all those books to be read by people. We are scanning them to be read by an AI.” If that’s true, then it’s easier to understand Google’s secrecy. The world’s greatest collection of knowledge was mere grist to train machines, a sacrifice for the singularity. Google is a company without clear boundaries, or rather, a company with ever-expanding boundaries. That’s why it’s chilling to hear Larry Page denounce competition as a wasteful concept and to hear him celebrate cooperation as the way forward. “Being negative is not how we make progress and most important things are not zero sum,” he says. “How exciting is it to come to work if the best you can do is trounce some other company that does roughly the same thing?” And it’s even more chilling to hear him contemplate how Google will someday employ more than one million people, a company twenty times larger than it is now. That’s not just a boast about dominating an industry where he faces no true rivals, it’s a boast about dominating something far vaster, a statement of Google’s intent to impose its values and theological convictions on the world.
Franklin Foer (World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech)
It’s the notion that the most crucial ingredient in a team that achieves and sustains historic greatness is the character of the player who leads it.
Sam Walker (The Captain Class: A New Theory of Leadership)
Sometimes Roosevelt’s ambassadors and State Department advisers failed to grasp the significance of important events and sometimes they gave poor advice, but they often informed the president and helped shape his thinking. In the end, of course, Franklin Roosevelt, alone, made historic decisions about American engagement and leadership in a volatile world. As he told Wendell Willkie after the election in 1940, “Some day you may well be sitting here where I am now as president of the United States … you’ll learn what a lonely job this is.
David McKean (Watching Darkness Fall: FDR, His Ambassadors, and the Rise of Adolf Hitler)
title nor the institutional support that accompanies the position today, Harry Hopkins was America’s first national security adviser. Sometimes Roosevelt’s ambassadors and State Department advisers failed to grasp the significance of important events and sometimes they gave poor advice, but they often informed the president and helped shape his thinking. In the end, of course, Franklin Roosevelt, alone, made historic decisions about American engagement and leadership in a volatile world. As he told Wendell Willkie after the election in 1940, “Some day you may well be sitting here where I am now as president of the United States … you’ll learn what a lonely job this is.
David McKean (Watching Darkness Fall: FDR, His Ambassadors, and the Rise of Adolf Hitler)
pastors in churches with a strong evangelistic or innovative bent (among whom I count myself) to claim that they don’t like to be around Christians. One pastor recently told me that he didn’t want any Christians coming to his new church plant. He only wanted non-Christians searching for God, and new Christians who’d recently come to Christ. On one hand, I understand where he’s coming from. He’s tired of dealing with small-minded traditionalists who want to maintain a historical preservation society more than fulfill the mission. But on the other hand, I fear for the unintended consequences of his outlook. If he’s only going to reach out to non-Christians and nurture new Christians, what’s he going to do when those new Christians become plain ol’ Christians, the kind he hates to be around? His patience and compassion flow easily toward people caught in the addictive clutches of sin. He thinks the rough language and butchered theology of a new Christian is cool, sort of like the cute things little kids say and do. But two or three years later his patience runs thin and the compassion runs dry when he realizes that these cute new Christians are still dealing with the same old issues. At that point he leaves the “slow growers” to fend for themselves. Many quietly make their way out the back door, though he never seems to notice in the excitement of all the new folks coming through the front door.
Larry Osborne (Sticky Church (Leadership Network Innovation Series Book 6))
-Whatever the world would say; however, as a fact, Russia, in the leadership of Vladimir Putin, has given historical lessons and the silent defeat to the United States of America in both ways; the diplomatic and war strategy. After retreating from Afghanistan by the American-made Taliban, including Bin Laden since that and the Iraq war till present, the USA has lost its incredibility in world eyes and failed to build peace, harmony, and equality within small and large states of the world. Now, Donald Trump, even though his political speeches meet hard critical responses, but it seems that he will restore, and achieve the American image of justice and peace for everyone. Otherwise, the failure is the destiny that may collapse the unity within states of it, as in the Soviet Union.
Ehsan Sehgal
The Makhnovist movement rose up as a result of the Brest-Litovsk agreement in which the Bolsheviks ceded Ukraine to Austrian and German Imperialism. But like the rest of the old Russian empire Ukraine was in the throes of a social revolution as the peasantry was seizing the land. The Ukrainian Confederation of Anarchist Organizations (Nabat) saw in this situation an opportunity to build under anarchist leadership a military force that might carry forward the revolution and expel the foreign imperialists. And that is precisely what they did before they were crushed by the Bolshevik Red Army.
Christopher Day (The Historical Failure of Anarchism: Implications for the Future of the Revolutionary Project (Kasama Essays for Discussion))
the narratives that become hegemonic are those that reflect the world as seen from the vantage point of the rulers rather than the ruled typically” (2016). We’ll come back to this. Again from Stuart Hall: “First, hegemony is a very particular historically specific and temporary moment in the life of a society. It’s rare for this degree of unity to be achieved, enabling a society to set itself a quite new historical agenda under the leadership of a specific formation or constellation of social forces [with a critical part here]. Such periods of settlement are unlikely to persist forever.
Noam Chomsky (Consequences of Capitalism: Manufacturing Discontent and Resistance)
the narratives that become hegemonic are those that reflect the world as seen from the vantage point of the rulers rather than the ruled typically” (2016). We’ll come back to this. Again from Stuart Hall: “First, hegemony is a very particular historically specific and temporary moment in the life of a society. It’s rare for this degree of unity to be achieved, enabling a society to set itself a quite new historical agenda under the leadership of a specific formation or constellation of social forces [with a critical part here]. Such periods of settlement are unlikely to persist forever.” There’s nothing automatic about them. They have to be actively constructed and positively maintained. Otherwise, such hegemonies risk falling apart. We can see this when we see schisms even within the ruling class,
Noam Chomsky (Consequences of Capitalism: Manufacturing Discontent and Resistance)
I did a study, called Men, that I’m hoping to make into a film. It’s about testosterone and how it acts in homogenized groups of male leadership. It’s about looking at what happens when you just have men at the fore of the political, financial, religious and cultural systems of the world. Historically, these systems were-and let’s be honest, still are-run by men: mostly white men. The continuation of this could be the end of us, because it’s one of the reasons we’ve had such intractability around climate change. In a closed system of male-dominated leadership, men’s testosterone and cortisol levels rise, which produces a really negative cascade of effects. It produces an acute focus on short-term threats and a very long-lens focus on long-term threats: so terrorism feels very, very immediate, but climate change-which is much more likely to be the bigger catastrophe-is put off. Men also fire dopamine and serotonin when they engage in conflict, so in these situations they exhibit much more risk-taking behavior. Women have somewhat of a different leadership style, so when you inject a tipping point of 30 per cent women into a ruling system of men, the entire group changes biochemically-communication, collaboration and consensus-building becomes more possible. My big theory is that, if more women were involved in the leadership of the world, in every country, we might see less war and more action on some of the direst threats. There are studies that bear this theory out; the countries that have the most progressive policies toward women generally have more women in office and in business. These countries also have the highest gross domestic products, they have the highest happiness indices and they have the lowest incidences of war. The countries that have the most repressive policies towards women are in endless cycles of war and tend to be doing very, very poorly.
Laura Dawn
He attacked the FBI’s leadership with demeaning names: “nut job,” “phony,” “ignorant fool,” “major sleazebag.” 14 His most aggressive assaults often came in response to specific investigations, acts of retaliation and intimidation aimed at undermining FBI inquiries into his administration’s ties to Russia. To Trump, anyone who was not with him was against him, including a vast array of government employees who were supposed to be loyal to the facts and the truth and the law—and not to the Trump White House.
Julian E. Zelizer (The Presidency of Donald J. Trump: A First Historical Assessment)
The leading authorities on the subject of revolutionary upheavals recognize three essentials for a revolution — using the word in its historical sense and not in its popular sense of “a Red plot”: a revolutionary situation, a revolutionary leadership, and a revolutionary act, a triple necessity admirably illustrated by the Leninist revolution in Russia in 1917, so admirably indeed that to the very great detriment of the revolutionary cause the brilliant opportunism which took full advantage of special, circumstances has been stereotyped into a formula which is at once a recipe for and a test of revolution.
R.T. Clark
Geriatric or other life extension for the powerful poses a similar threat to a sentient species as that found historically in the dominance of a self-perpetuating bureaucracy. Both assume prerogatives of immortality, collecting more and more power with each passing moment. This is power which draws a theological aura about itself: the unassailable Law, the God-given mandate of the leader, manifest destiny. Power held too long within a narrow framework moves farther and farther away from the adaptive demands of changed conditions. The leadership grows ever more paranoid, suspicious of inventive adaptations to change, fearfully protective of personal power and, in the terrified avoidance of what it sees as risk, blindly leads its people into destruction. ―BuSab Manual
Frank Herbert (The Dosadi Experiment (ConSentiency Universe, #2))
The attraction to a charismatic leader, according to Weber, “may involve a subjective or internal reorientation born out of suffering, conflicts or enthusiasm,” and that this seems to occur “in times of psychic, physical, economic, ethical, religious, political distress.”100 Post also recognized that historical situations can be conducive to the rise of charismatic leadership: “At moments of societal crisis, otherwise mature and psychologically healthy individuals may temporarily come to feel overwhelmed and in need of a strong and self-assured leader.
Dan Vogel (Charisma under Pressure: Joseph Smith, American Prophet, 1831–1839)
It is obvious that there is no uniform pattern of government in Acts. The form of leadership was an historical development in which the apostles, elders, and the congregation shared.
George Eldon Ladd (A Theology of the New Testament)
RULING CLASS. For Marxists the ruling class is the economically dominant class, and the economically dominant class is the class that owns and controls the means of production. With economic power comes political power, and Karl Marx saw the ruling class as controlling the state. Furthermore, the ruling class is intellectually dominant, which Marx expressed as, “The ideas of the ruling class are, in every age, the ruling ideas.” The notion of a ruling class can obscure or oversimplify complexities of class rule. For example, as Marx himself notes in discussing various actual historical examples, the ruling class may be split into different sections, or may be difficult to determine, and the Soviet Union raised the question of whether or not its leadership constituted a new ruling class not defined in terms of its property ownership. The state itself may develop its own autonomy and interests separate from those of the dominant economic class, a complicating factor explored by Nico Poulantzas and Ralph Miliband. The issue of the ruling class’s ideas being the ruling ideas is a further issue of debate within Marxism, with Antonio Gramsci’s notion of hegemony, and the Frankfurt School’s focus on ideology raising the question of the extent to which ideology is instrumental in maintaining class rule.
Walker David (Historical Dictionary of Marxism (Historical Dictionaries of Religions, Philosophies, and Movements Series))
Marcy Resnik said as a woman lawyer, building a thriving legal practice can be both challenging and rewarding. Women have historically faced barriers in the legal profession, including gender bias, lack of representation in leadership positions, and work-life balance challenges. However, with determination, strategic planning, and effective business strategies, women can build successful and thriving legal practices.
Marcy Resnik
will require that we demand and build a country where fewer people are harmed by violence and fewer people are incarcerated; place regard for human dignity at the center of policies and practices; and prioritize survivors’ needs for healing, safety, and justice. It will require that we draw on the leadership, expertise, and authority of people most impacted—including crime survivors, those who are or have been incarcerated, and the loved ones of both—and that we nurture community-led strategies that prevent and address trauma and violence, create healthy communities, and help foster protection for everyone. It will require that we make a commitment to accountability for violence in a way that is more meaningful and more effective than incarceration; engage in an honest reckoning with the current and historic role race has played in the use of punishment in the United States; and change the socioeconomic and structural conditions that make violence likely in the first place. The
Danielle Sered (Until We Reckon: Violence, Mass Incarceration, and a Road to Repair)
It’s one thing to confront militant Islamists on pickup trucks, armed with Kalashnikov rifles,” I said, referring to the ISIS terrorist threat that still captured the world’s attention. “It’s another thing to confront militant Islamists armed with weapons of mass destruction. Imagine how much more dangerous the Islamic state of ISIS would be if it possessed chemical weapons. Now imagine how much more dangerous the Islamic state of Iran would be if it possessed nuclear weapons.”3 But there was a silver lining. “I believe we have an historic opportunity,” I said. “After decades of seeing Israel as their enemy, leading states in the Arab world increasingly recognize that together we face the same dangers, a nuclear-armed Iran and militant Islamist movements.” Foreshadowing the Abraham Accords, I said, “Many have long assumed that an Israeli-Palestinian peace can help facilitate a broader rapprochement between Israel and the Arab world. I think it may work the other way around: a broader rapprochement between Israel and the Arab world may help facilitate an Israeli-Palestinian peace. To achieve that peace, we must look not only to Jerusalem and Ramallah, but also to Cairo, Amman, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh and elsewhere.”4 Two days later I repeated these themes in my meeting with Obama in the White House. As usual, my main emphasis was on Iran. “As you know, Mr. President,” I said, “Iran seeks a deal that would lift the tough sanctions that you worked so hard to put in place and leave it as a threshold nuclear power, and I fervently hope that under your leadership that will not happen.”5 While my warnings on Iran didn’t move Obama, they registered loud and clear in American public opinion and in Congress. This was soon to have momentous consequences.
Benjamin Netanyahu (Bibi: My Story)
But leadership isn’t yelling at your teammates on the field or giving some fiery speech. Leadership is work. It’s the example you set.
Tom Coughlin (A Giant Win: Inside the New York Giants' Historic Upset over the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLII)
The US administration constantly sought to advance its misplaced messianic quest for a magical peace via “courageous” acts on the part of Israel’s leaders, even if these acts meant political suicide. Would American presidents consider taking “courageous actions,” such as, to use a historical example, far-reaching concessions to the Soviet Union if Congress could remove them from office the next day? Of course not. Yet this didn’t prevent American presidents and their envoys from attempting to tutor Israeli prime ministers, especially me, about the need for “courage” and “leadership.” I was being lectured about courage from people who had neither risked their own lives in war nor their political lives. When such “leadership” wasn’t forthcoming from me, this was proof of a clear failure of character by a politician guided solely by cynical and personal interests. The conflict between national necessity and political survival is as old as democracy itself, but it didn’t apply here. What stood in the way of the concessions I was pressed to make was simply my belief that they would greatly endanger Israel. So why make them? This too has eluded many American pundits. They might have noted that when I did believe certain measures were vital for Israel’s future, I didn’t hesitate to take them.
Benjamin Netanyahu (Bibi: My Story)
Two years before his brutal murder, Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty, ending hostilities between the two countries. The historic treaty had enormous ramifications in the Middle East. Under Sadat’s leadership, Egypt became the first Arab state to officially recognize Israel. Now, it looked like all the hard work that had been done to restore peace between the two countries was going to be reversed.
Howard Johns (Drowning Sorrows: A True Story of Love, Passion and Betrayal)
We’ve been thinking the same thoughts for so long that our thinking feels like a deeply ingrained habit that we believe we have no control over. Because we’ve run our old story and our historical mental programs for so many years, they’ve become automatic and unconscious. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have power over them. And it doesn’t mean we can’t change them into habits of mind that serve our leadership potential. We can! We have absolute dominion over our thoughts. And the more personal responsibility you take for every one of your thoughts, the more powerful a thinker—and a leader—you will become. One thing that makes us fully human is our ability to think about our thinking, you know. Right now, in this very moment, you can sit quietly and inquire about the beliefs that run and thoughts that fill your mind each day. And as you spend more time in silent inquiry, you will build greater awareness of the thoughts you think. And with greater awareness around the ones that no longer serve you, you can make better choices. And with better choices, of course, you will experience better results. As you know better, you can do better.
Robin S. Sharma (The Leader Who Had No Title: A Modern Fable on Real Success in Business and in)
Despite the fact that Jesus came to demonstrate a model of leadership defined by love, care, honour and sacrifice, we humans took the word “dominion” and stripped it down to being all about hierarchy. Animals became little more than resources to use and exploit. Because we’ve seen animals as resources for so long, raised for meat and skins, we’ve historically seen them as inferior to us—“base” creatures with limited or no intelligence or capacity for emotion. Certainly not something we would wish to become.
Peter Laws (The Frighteners: A Celebration of our Fascination with the Macabre)
As early as November 1966, the Red Guard Corps of Beijing Normal University had set their sights on the Confucian ancestral home in Qufu County in Shandong Province. Invoking the language of the May Fourth movement, they proceeded to Qufu, where they established themselves as the Revolutionary Rebel Liaison State to Annihilate the Old Curiosity Shop of Confucius. Within the month they had totally destroyed the Temple of Confucius, the Kong Family Mansion, the Cemetery of Confucius (including the Master’s grave), and all the statues, steles, and relics in the area... In January 1967 another Red Guard unit editorialized in the People’s Daily: To struggle against Confucius, the feudal mummy, and thoroughly eradicate . . . reactionary Confucianism is one of our important tasks in the Great Cultural Revolution. And then, to make their point, they went on a nationwide rampage, destroying temples, statues, historical landmarks, texts, and anything at all to do with the ancient Sage... The Cultural Revolution came to an end with Mao’s death in 1976. In 1978 Deng Xiaoping (1904–97) became China’s paramount leader, setting China on a course of economic and political reform, and effectively bringing an end to the Maoist ideal of class conflict and perpetual revolution. Since 2000, the leadership in Beijing, eager to advance economic prosperity and promote social stability, has talked not of the need for class conflict but of the goal of achieving a “harmonious society,” citing approvingly the passage from the Analects, “harmony is something to be cherished” (1.12). The Confucius compound in Qufu has been renovated and is now the site of annual celebrations of Confucius’s birthday in late September. In recent years, colleges and universities throughout the country—Beijing University, Qufu Normal University, Renmin University, Shaanxi Normal University, and Shandong University, to name a few—have established Confucian study and research centers. And, in the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Olympics, the Beijing Olympic Committee welcomed guests from around the world to Beijing with salutations from the Analects, “Is it not a joy to have friends come from afar?” and “Within the fours seas all men are brothers,” not with sayings from Mao’s Little Red Book. Tellingly, when the Chinese government began funding centers to support the study of the Chinese language and culture in foreign schools and universities around the globe in 2004—a move interpreted as an ef f ort to expand China’s “soft power”—it chose to name these centers Confucius Institutes... The failure of Marxism-Leninism has created an ideological vacuum, prompting people to seek new ways of understanding society and new sources of spiritual inspiration. The endemic culture of greed and corruption—spawned by the economic reforms and the celebration of wealth accompanying them—has given rise to a search for a set of values that will address these social ills. And, crucially, rising nationalist sentiments have fueled a desire to fi nd meaning within the native tradition—and to of f set the malignant ef f ects of Western decadence and materialism. Confucius has thus played a variety of roles in China’s twentieth and twenty-first centuries. At times praised, at times vilified, he has been both good guy and bad guy. Yet whether good or bad, he has always been somewhere on the stage. These days Confucius appears to be gaining favor again, in official circles and among the people. But what the future holds for him and his teachings is difficult to predict. All we can say with any certainty is that Confucius will continue to matter.
Daniel K. Gardner (Confucianism: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions))