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Introduction
WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?
They are priceless, multifaceted jewels of misjudgment. Masterworks of the moronic. Steroid-juiced stupidity wearing a size 9XX dunce cap embroidered with one simple word: "Duh."
They are the colossally, cringingly, often laughably bad notions that have leapt from the short-circuiting synapses of some of the world's brightest (and dimmest) brains, now faithfully chronicled here as 100 of the Worst Ideas in History.
Hailing from the worlds of politics, popular culture, international relations, finance, business, sports, entertainment, and news—from the near and distant past—these shoddy concepts have started wars, sunk countries, wrecked companies, scuttled careers, lost millions, endangered Earth, and left the bad idea's mommy or daddy as red faced as, well, your mom or dad will be when they learn that you like to dress your pit bull as one of the Backstreet Boys.
On this rollicking romp through the bungles and stumbles of humanity, we'll:
Meet the U.S. president who starts each day skinny-dipping in the Potomac.
Sample the "dental hygiene product" that could rot your teeth.
Get an earful of the hit singing group that can't really sing.
Munch on the tasty new snack food that might just give you diarrhea.
Drop by the restaurant chain named after a derogatory term for African Americans.
Encounter the famed archaeologist whose discovery of the "missing link" is revealed to be a monkey jaw glued to a human skull.
Stick an angry ferret down our pants for fun and prizes.
Plus so much more (of so much less).
Peppered with scores of info-taining photos, "Hey-I-Didn't-Know-That" factoids, and perspective-gaining "Afterthoughts," this collection of our species' most stupendously stinky thinking spotlights how the ideas of yesterday—from funny flubs to the stunningly strange to classic mind-bogglers—continue to resonate in each of our lives today.
Without further ado and in no particular order, here are 100 of history's thundering brainstorms that turned out to be blundering brain farts.