What Were They Thinking?: Really Bad Ideas Throughout History

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Overview

Bad ideas are everywhere--they're the tile grout of history, the crabgrass of civilization, poking up through every crack in our thinking. According to government statistics, they outnumber good ideas 600 to 1.

Revised and expanded with 20% more new entries, What Were They Thinking is a compendium of some 400 harebrained schemes, fool notions, and misguided obsessions both grandiose and mundane. Readers will uncover one man's effort to market ...
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2003 Trade paperback Illustrated. New. No dust jacket as issued. 100% satisfaction guaranteed. No Remainder Mark, No Damage. Ship twice daily. Trade paperback (US). Glued ... binding. 274 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. Read more Show Less

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More About This Book

Overview

Bad ideas are everywhere--they're the tile grout of history, the crabgrass of civilization, poking up through every crack in our thinking. According to government statistics, they outnumber good ideas 600 to 1.

Revised and expanded with 20% more new entries, What Were They Thinking is a compendium of some 400 harebrained schemes, fool notions, and misguided obsessions both grandiose and mundane. Readers will uncover one man's effort to market a board game based on the Lebanese civil war . . . an Iowa State University professor's proposal to blow up the moon . . . and Senator Victor Biaka-Boda's ill-considered campaign trip to the Ivory Coast hinterlands. (Not only did he lose the election, his constituents ate him.) Within these pages, the aim has not been to probe the motives behind bad ideas, but simply to recount and, above all, revel in them.

The stories in What Were They Thinking? range from the horrific to the hilarious; many are both. But they are all true.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780762726677
  • Publisher: Globe Pequot Press
  • Publication date: 8/1/2003
  • Series: Humor Series
  • Edition description: First Edition
  • Edition number: 1
  • Pages: 288
  • Product dimensions: 6.02 (w) x 9.16 (h) x 0.72 (d)

Meet the Author


Bruce Felton, an award-winning writer and editor, has written for numerous magazines and newspapers and has authored four books. He lives in New York City.
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Read an Excerpt

Elvis has left the crisper
Bell peppers that look like Elvis? It's possible with the Elvis Vegiform, a plastic mold that fits over garden produce, casting it in the king's shape as it grows. Vegetables shaped like Elvis "are more weighty," claimed inventor Richard Tweddell III, "and the flavor is enhanced."
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Table of Contents

*Bad ideas in politics and government
*Bad ideas in politics and government beyond our shores
*Bad ideas in war -- and peace
*Bad ideas in arts and letters
*Bad ideas in popular culture
*Bad ideas in science and medicine
*Bonehead plays in the field of sports
*Misguided gestures, pointless heroics and unsafe practices
*Marketplace excesses
*Empty calories and unappetizing ideas
*Transportation ideas that hopped the track
*Bad ideas for better living
*Bad ideas in flora and fauna
*Lamebrained crimes, misdemeanors, and legal pronouncements
*The End: Death as the ultimate bad idea

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