Thomas B > Recent Status Updates

Exceptional. Read it!

I’ve read a whole bunch of biographies by generals, which I find narcissistic trips with little to learn. This is a beautiful, humble voice with real learning value. I can’t wait to finish it.

Excellent. A book aimed at organisational leadership, and building teams over performance outputs. I am witness to the toxic cultures he warns of, CEOs and management should be inspired by this work.

I was ‘leadership studied’ out before picking this book up, and wasn’t feeling the learning, but Simon is excellent at bringing lessons out through simple, demonstrable, accessible examples; I’m energised again!

Lessons I’ve learnt thus far:
1. the British I Dian army dealt far better with challenge and command disagreement than our present army.
2. Bobs opinions on why the Indian mutiny occurred are stunningly similar to why NATOs actions in Afghanistan were contested so hard by the afghans.
3. Bobs assessment of leadership qualities in his peers and his own actions are still relevant to todays leaders in learning

So far, so spectacular. I have always been annoyed my history education, typical for The British curriculum, pretty much starts after William the Conquerer. This book is painting a beautiful picture of the Dark Ages for me, which appear only to be ‘dark’ because we’re not taught about it. If you think yourself British, this book should be on your bookshelf.

I made the joke that the author treats the non-marxist/capitalist public as peons, p176 and he’s literally comparing banks to feudalism and calling people peasants. Still stating opinion as fact, still hiding information in the notes. I feel this book is actually a capitalist exercise to profit from the collective misery of the Marxist workers for his own gain at their expense.

Getting real tired of his holier than thou b*llucks. The authors world is black and white, between Marxists and neo-liberal capitalists and us poor peons in the cracks between them. P.158 he finally accepted he ‘must’ address counter arguments, expending one of his larger footnotes to explain its a pointless exercise as criticism is inevitable. *claps* well done professor for your ✌🏼humility✌🏼

P.72 cont’d: notes are not where you hide the counter argument to your hypothesis. Hiding the rebuttal or validations like ‘I note not every receptionist is a bullshit job’ after lambasting the role in the main body is disgraceful. It’s deceitful.

I’d you absolutely must read this book, be sure to go to the notes every time you come across one, or the picture you are being painted is of a warped reality.

Chapter 3 and I’ve discovered a whole new book at the back of this on in the Notes. Usually notes contain references or broader explanation that is divergent from the main text and not entirely necessary but note 1 for chapter three: “And as we’ll see even these tend to be highly ambivalent.”

This is bad Notes! Very bad notes! Notes are not “or only ostensible role” note 20 ch. 2 this is awful writing!

Still struggling with the this. For a professor in a university, it’s painful to see how biased his assumptions are with regard to the worst class based prejudices I have grappled with. I know this is t a peer reviewed piece of academic work, but I’d expect far more self awareness from an anthropology academic.

Awful so far… try some of the worst, prejudiced, ego-ravings I’ve read packaged as pop-philosophy. P.20 only and I want to sling it. I’m angry I have given the author any of my money. If he were a pilot I’d get off his plane and away from the risks from his dangerous, and unprofessional lunacy.

So far I’m disappointed after a strong start. By half way through it’s starting to build some kind of Socio-economic manifesto. I’m find it tough to stay motivated.

The attempt to mirror Plutarch by comparing portraits of leaders feels history-lite, evidenced by the thin essential reading list bibliographies. Given so much is known about modern leaders in the Information Age, compressing so many into so few pages was always a challenge but the portraits are not complete pictures, and the following comparison doesn’t articulate the quality of leadership in question well.

Although dense it is engaging and very well structured and a pleasure to follow.
I would have appreciated a glossary of the Arabic terms and definitions, including Arabic script spelling. This would make referencing simpler when meaning slip our minds, rather than leaving backwards to hunt for the passage it was first mentioned in.

Could do with stripping out some of the words that require a dictionary to prevent putting off less enthusiastic readers, but they are mercifully rare and Helen Castors dry humour more than makes up for it for me.

Tortuous going...

Having just enjoyed The Shallows which follows a similar thread (and cited in this book), this effort is stilted and incongruous. The broken up interview anecdotes in the smaller chapter sizes often retread themselves, making the narrative book circular and frustratingly slow. Unlike the Shallows There is no counter viewpoint; this book (and I’ll admit I’m only half way through) is entirely negative.

Oh my god! It's like gouging my eyes out with marshmallows! Seriously though: a historian told me he gave up on this because it's inaccessible. It's not inaccessible. It's verbose, meandering and generally vague most of the time. It's like reading a highly intelligent, articulate mans thesis on brain-farts. But I'm going to finish it!!!

Its Episodic, rambling nature undermines a collection of good tales. Don't read if easily offended; written in europe at a time when the middle east and islam were considered mysterious, barbarous and exotic, stereotyping pervades every page. Not an easy read, but i'm still enjoying it.