The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.Įveryone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). This compact biography should please Jackson’s fans even if it doesn’t break new ground in exploring the singer’s life. The authors, who set out to understand why their subject died at 50, end up asking a different question: “Given the extraordinary obstacles he faced, the stresses that pulled him apart, how did Michael survive as long as he did?” In occasionally purple prose, the authors ratchet up the suspense and drama of this period of the singer’s life, ending most of the brief chapters with some variant on, “Sleep, the most precious of commodities, eluded him,” or “sleep, precious sleep, comes not at all.” The most intriguing sections of the book unravel the complicated business relationships in which Jackson was involved, his attempts to separate himself from his parents and siblings, and his efforts to push his art further while his fans were demanding more of the same.
Smiley and Ritz are clearly sympathetic to their subject, sometimes to the point of glossing over Jackson’s more questionable choices and actions. The authors delve through a wealth of research material to create a nearly day-by-day account of Jackson’s last weeks, with occasional glimpses into his earlier life. He was also doing a lot of shopping, playing with his three children, watching Shirley Temple movies, making questionable business decisions, receiving almost daily Botox injections, taking an increasing number of prescription painkillers, and suffering from a degree of insomnia that caused him to enlist a doctor to administer the anesthetics that led to his death.
#Before you judge me series
TV and radio host Smiley ( My Journey with Maya, 2015, etc.) and his frequent writing collaborator Ritz tell the story of the 16 weeks preceding the death of singer Michael Jackson (1958-2009).īefore he died, the King of Pop was preparing for a series of comeback concerts in London.
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