The Art of Victory: Strategies for Personal Success and ... (ISBN 1416524789)

OK - But should have been better:
Having seen the author interiewed on C-SPAN, I waited for the publication of this book - perhaps I expected too much from it. Given his impressive background, I think Copley could have produced a more focused book. It reads a bit like a stream of consciousness - on the one hand, going off in many directions, and - on the other hand, being repetitive. A serious edit could have eliminated some of the "excess," and helped the reader maintain her/his focus. Trying to offer ideas that apply from the individual, to the organizational, to the societal level is also a bit of a stretch. Trying to cover everything in one book just doesn't work. On the plus side, the book does contain some good thoughts. Some of these might be called "analysis" and some are more "author's bias." The somewhat disjointed and repetitive nature made me want to "get finished" with the book. It is definitely possible that my haste caused me to miss additional good thoughts.

A bit rambling, very partisan, sometimes insightful, sometimes naive:
First off, the title is misleading. The title contains the phrase "...Strategies for Personal Success..." but I didn't see much if any application to a person's personal life discussed in the book. The book focusses mostly on international politics, not something you would expect from the title. Secondly, much of the discussion seems rambling and unfounded. That's not to say there isn't insightful information. There is. But to weed it out of all the other nonsense is probably not worth your time. Finally, I have to say the repeated references to Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and the United Nations all in very negative terms with very little criticism of Republican presidents sounds more partisan than objective. The author thinks the purpose of the UN is to maintain the status quo of the world when the UN was created in the 40's...whereas I would tend toward the opinion that the UN evolves over time and it's major weakness is the failure of the USA to fully support the organization. The author repeatedly referred to Clinton's construction of a war in Kosavo as a way to deflect the public eye from his personal crimes. Whereas, from my point of view, most Americans were pretty ignorant about what happened in the former Yugoslavia and were much more entertained by Whitehouse drama. The rest seemed to be about how not to give up advantages by being nice to those you defeated, how the US and Europe squanders their past victories, etc. There may be some truth in this...but there may also be some value in sharing the results of ones victories with allies and potential allies...

Great thoughts, poorly captured:
After reading this book with high hopes and being disappointed, I thought maybe I had a trouble understanding it or that I was to critical. But after reading the other reviewers I believe I was right. At times the book has great observations like "Most of the time a nation gets the leader they deserve". Or the point that nations advance economically when they go to more bartering and hard assets to more abstract economics like stocks, interest rates, debt vehicles, etc. At times this book reads like the books Thomas Friedman's "The world is flat" or Sun Tzu's "Art of War" but those times are brief and rare. I am sure this author is a brilliant man, but unfortunately not a great writer. The author's ambition to write a book about victory at the personal, corporate, and national levels was a little to ambitious and led to the book traveling all over the place and never arriving at any real point.I would skip this one.

What is the deal with the Democratic presidents?:
For him none of the US Democratic Prsidents were good... too bad i do not agree with that

Listend to the Audio Book:
Enjoy listening to it but you have to pay careful attention as it is written in a very concise manner. I find the author to be extremely literate and I would recommend the audiobook.