The Bluffer's Guide to the Classics

The Bluffer's Guide to the Classics
Author: Ross Leckie
Publisher: Oval Projects Ltd
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2005
Genre: Authors, Classical
ISBN: 9781903096390

Be an instant expert in opera and bluff your way Z99 all aficianados No heroics required just a sense of humor From Demi-Gods to Democracy and Oracles to Oratory the Bluffers Guide to the Classics offers all you need to know to achieve th

The Bluffer's Guide to the Classics

The Bluffer's Guide to the Classics
Author: Ross Leckie
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 1999
Genre: Authors, Classical
ISBN: 9781902825489

In most areas of human endeavor, bluffing is an easy way of getting by -- a method of artificially appearing knowledgeable. The Bluffer's Guides are a three million-copy best-selling series of snappy little books containing facts, jargon, and inside information -- all that readers need to know to hold their own among the experts.

Bluff Your Way in Archaeology

Bluff Your Way in Archaeology
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 64
Release: 1999
Genre:
ISBN:

Handbuch/übergreifende Darstellung - Grossbritannien/Irland - Popularisierung/Belletristik.

Bluffer's Guide To Etiquette

Bluffer's Guide To Etiquette
Author: William Hanson
Publisher: Haynes Publishing UK
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2018-06-26
Genre: Humor
ISBN: 9781785212383

Instantly acquire all the knowledge you need to pass as an expert in the world of etiquette and high society. Know what to say, what not to say, where to be seen, and what and what not to wear. Never again be found wanting when asked if someone is a PLU or a NQOCD, why port should be passed to the left, or how many air kisses you should aim at the proffered cheek of someone you barely know. Arm yourself with the essential words or phrases which have entered the etiquette lexicon from pre-revolutionary France, and know not to mix up your droit du seigneur with your noblesse oblige. Bask in the admiration of your aristocratic hosts as you enquire politely about the place à table, pronounce confidently on whether the going is heavy or soft, and hold your own against the most sneering of posturing parvenus.

The Bluffer's Guide to Opera

The Bluffer's Guide to Opera
Author: Keith Hann
Publisher: Bluffer's Guides
Total Pages: 128
Release: 2013-08-01
Genre: Opera
ISBN: 9781909365681

Instantly acquire all the knowledge you need to pass as an expert in the world of opera. Never again confuse a castrato with a contralto, a prima donna with sopratitoli, or O Sole Mio with an ice cream advert. Bask in the admiration of your fellow opera lovers as you pronounce confidently on the merits of Donizetti’s bel canto over Wagner’s leitmotiv, and hold your own against the most sneering of opera buffs.

Japan 1941

Japan 1941
Author: Eri Hotta
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 465
Release: 2013-10-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 0385350511

A groundbreaking history that considers the attack on Pearl Harbor from the Japanese perspective and is certain to revolutionize how we think of the war in the Pacific. When Japan launched hostilities against the United States in 1941, argues Eri Hotta, its leaders, in large part, understood they were entering a war they were almost certain to lose. Drawing on material little known to Western readers, and barely explored in depth in Japan itself, Hotta poses an essential question: Why did these men—military men, civilian politicians, diplomats, the emperor—put their country and its citizens so unnecessarily in harm’s way? Introducing us to the doubters, schemers, and would-be patriots who led their nation into this conflagration, Hotta brilliantly shows us a Japan rarely glimpsed—eager to avoid war but fraught with tensions with the West, blinded by reckless militarism couched in traditional notions of pride and honor, tempted by the gambler’s dream of scoring the biggest win against impossible odds and nearly escaping disaster before it finally proved inevitable. In an intimate account of the increasingly heated debates and doomed diplomatic overtures preceding Pearl Harbor, Hotta reveals just how divided Japan’s leaders were, right up to (and, in fact, beyond) their eleventh-hour decision to attack. We see a ruling cadre rich in regional ambition and hubris: many of the same leaders seeking to avoid war with the United States continued to adamantly advocate Asian expansionism, hoping to advance, or at least maintain, the occupation of China that began in 1931, unable to end the second Sino-Japanese War and unwilling to acknowledge Washington’s hardening disapproval of their continental incursions. Even as Japanese diplomats continued to negotiate with the Roosevelt administration, Matsuoka Yosuke, the egomaniacal foreign minister who relished paying court to both Stalin and Hitler, and his facile supporters cemented Japan’s place in the fascist alliance with Germany and Italy—unaware (or unconcerned) that in so doing they destroyed the nation’s bona fides with the West. We see a dysfunctional political system in which military leaders reported to both the civilian government and the emperor, creating a structure that facilitated intrigues and stoked a jingoistic rivalry between Japan’s army and navy. Roles are recast and blame reexamined as Hotta analyzes the actions and motivations of the hawks and skeptics among Japan’s elite. Emperor Hirohito and General Hideki Tojo are newly appraised as we discover how the two men fumbled for a way to avoid war before finally acceding to it. Hotta peels back seventy years of historical mythologizing—both Japanese and Western—to expose all-too-human Japanese leaders torn by doubt in the months preceding the attack, more concerned with saving face than saving lives, finally drawn into war as much by incompetence and lack of political will as by bellicosity. An essential book for any student of the Second World War, this compelling reassessment will forever change the way we remember those days of infamy.

Calling Bullshit

Calling Bullshit
Author: Carl T. Bergstrom
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2021-04-20
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0525509208

Bullshit isn’t what it used to be. Now, two science professors give us the tools to dismantle misinformation and think clearly in a world of fake news and bad data. “A modern classic . . . a straight-talking survival guide to the mean streets of a dying democracy and a global pandemic.”—Wired Misinformation, disinformation, and fake news abound and it’s increasingly difficult to know what’s true. Our media environment has become hyperpartisan. Science is conducted by press release. Startup culture elevates bullshit to high art. We are fairly well equipped to spot the sort of old-school bullshit that is based in fancy rhetoric and weasel words, but most of us don’t feel qualified to challenge the avalanche of new-school bullshit presented in the language of math, science, or statistics. In Calling Bullshit, Professors Carl Bergstrom and Jevin West give us a set of powerful tools to cut through the most intimidating data. You don’t need a lot of technical expertise to call out problems with data. Are the numbers or results too good or too dramatic to be true? Is the claim comparing like with like? Is it confirming your personal bias? Drawing on a deep well of expertise in statistics and computational biology, Bergstrom and West exuberantly unpack examples of selection bias and muddled data visualization, distinguish between correlation and causation, and examine the susceptibility of science to modern bullshit. We have always needed people who call bullshit when necessary, whether within a circle of friends, a community of scholars, or the citizenry of a nation. Now that bullshit has evolved, we need to relearn the art of skepticism.

I Think, Therefore I Am

I Think, Therefore I Am
Author: Lesley Levene
Publisher: Michael O'Mara
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2013-04-04
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9781782430247

I Think, Therefore I Am is the ideal way to take the fear out of philosophy. Written in an accessible and entertaining style,I Think, Therefore I Am explains how and why philosophy began, and how the ways in which we live, learn, argue, vote and even spend our money have their origins in philosophical thought.

The Bluffer's Guide to Rock Music

The Bluffer's Guide to Rock Music
Author: Eamonn Forde
Publisher: Bluffer's Guides
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2013-08
Genre: Rock music
ISBN: 9781909365728

Instantly acquire all the knowledge you need to pass as an expert in the world of rock music. Never again be found wanting when asked why all amps ‘go to 11’, why a surprising number of late rockers are members of the ‘27 Club’, why you should always insist that while Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era,1965-1968 is as holy a rock relic as they come, it doesn’t hold a candle to Pebbles, and why the ‘toilet circuit’ is no way to describe the glamorous world of touring.