The Experts Speak: The Definitive Compendium of Authoritative Misinformation (Revised Edition) Expanded and Up Edition Contributor(s): Navasky, Victor S. (Author), Cerf, Christopher (Author) |
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ISBN: 0679778063 ISBN-13: 9780679778066 Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Binding Type: Paperback Published: August 1998 Annotation: Did you ever have the uneasy feeling the experts are not . . . well, expert? "Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." --Irving Fisher, professor of economics at Yale University, October 17, 1929 "Forget it, Louis, no Civil War picture ever made a nickel." --Irving Thalberg's warning to Louis B. Mayer regarding Gone With the Wind "We don't like their sound. Groups of guitars are on the way out." --Decca Recording Company executive, turning down the Beatles, 1962 "With over fifty foreign cars already on sale here the Japanese auto industry isn't likely to carve out a big share of the market for itself."--Business Week, 1968 "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home." --President of Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977 "Bill Clinton will lose to any Republican who doesn't drool on stage." --The Wall Street Journal, in a 1995 editorial The Experts Speak systematically catalogues, footnotes, and sets straight these and a couple of thousand other examples of expert misunderstanding, miscalculation, egregious prognostication, boo-boos, and just plain lies. The experts have been wrong about everything under, including, and beyond the sun: time, space, the sexes, the races, the environment, economics, politics, crime, education, the media, history, and science. In this expanded and updated edition (now more error-filled than ever), we see just how much the experts don't know. But the book also goes deeper, presenting a through-the-looking-glass chronicle of human knowledge: the story of what was and is so, as seen through the story of what we wanted to and did believe. |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Reference | Quotations - Humor |
Dewey: 082 |
LCCN: 98011252 |
Physical Information: 1.17" H x 6.22" W x 8.96" L (1.57 lbs) 480 pages |
Features: Illustrated, Index, Price on Product, Table of Contents |
Review Citations: Library Journal 04/01/1999 pg. 134 Rec Ref Bks in Paperback 01/01/2000 pg. 12 |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: Did you ever have the uneasy feeling the experts are not . . . well, expert? "Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." --Irving Fisher, professor of economics at Yale University, October 17, 1929 "Forget it, Louis, no Civil War picture ever made a nickel." --Irving Thalberg's warning to Louis B. Mayer regarding Gone With the Wind "We don't like their sound. Groups of guitars are on the way out." --Decca Recording Company executive, turning down the Beatles, 1962 "With over fifty foreign cars already on sale here the Japanese auto industry isn't likely to carve out a big share of the market for itself."--Business Week, 1968 "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home." --President of Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977 "Bill Clinton will lose to any Republican who doesn't drool on stage." --The Wall Street Journal, in a 1995 editorial The Experts Speak systematically catalogues, footnotes, and sets straight these and a couple of thousand other examples of expert misunderstanding, miscalculation, egregious prognostication, boo-boos, and just plain lies. The experts have been wrong about everything under, including, and beyond the sun: time, space, the sexes, the races, the environment, economics, politics, crime, education, the media, history, and science. In this expanded and updated edition (now more error-filled than ever), we see just how much the experts don't know. But the book also goes deeper, presenting a through-the-looking-glass chronicle of human knowledge: the story of what was and is so, as seen through the story of what we wanted to and did believe. |
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