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商品の説明
From Publishers Weekly
Applying the insights of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology to political leadership, University of Kentucky emeritus professor of psychiatry Arnold M. Ludwig (How Do We Know Who We Are?) in King of the Mountain: The Nature of Political Leadership compares human rulers to primates, arguing that male politicians, like their simian alpha-male cohorts, are adept at gaining, exercising and keeping power. Ludwig then focuses closely on 377 world leaders, including Idi Amin, Tony Blair, Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan examining a string of traits to identify what he considers the factors that determine a leader's greatness: the addition of new territory, military prowess, economic prosperity, etc. Although Ludwig presents exhaustive research, many of his assumptions such as that all societies want a ruler because it's the natural order of things lack support. Moreover, Ludwig quickly loses sight of his (somewhat shaky) thesis that human politicians derive their leadership drive from their primate ancestors. 29 b&w illus.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Book Description
King of the Mountain presents the startling findings of Arnold M. Ludwigs eighteen-year investigation into why people want to rule. The answer may seem obviouspower, privilege and perksbut any adequate answer also needs to explain why so many rulers cling to power even when they are miserable, trust nobody, feel besieged, and face almost certain death. Ludwigs results suggest that leaders of nations tend to act remarkably like monkeys and apes in the way they come to power, govern and rule.
Profiling every ruler of a recognized country in the twentieth centuryover 1,900 people in all, Ludwig establishes how rulers came to power, how they lost power, the dangers they faced, and the odds of their being assassinated, committing suicide, or dying a natural death. Then, concentrating on a smaller sub-set of 377 rulers for whom more extensive personal information was available, he compares six different kinds of leaders, examining their characteristics, their childhoods, and their mental stability or instability to identify the main predictors of later political success.
Ludwigs penetrating observations, though presented in a lighthearted and entertaining way, offer important insight into why humans have engaged in war throughout recorded history as well as suggesting how they might live together in peace.
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Amazon.com で最も参考になったカスタマーレビュー (beta)
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7件のカスタマーレビュー
17 人中、14人の方が、｢このレビューが参考になった｣と投票しています。
Why Men Rule
2003/1/11
形式:ハードカバー
It is surprising that the proponents of evolutionary psychology have not paid more attention to this book. Ludwig argues that the human desire to be the supreme political ruler is rooted in the same biological nature that supports the dominance of alpha males among monkeys and apes. He supports this argument with analysis of the 1,941 chief executive rulers of the independent countries in the 20th century. He illustrates his points with lively anecdotes from the lives of the 377 rulers for whom he had sufficient biographical information.
Of the many interesting points that he makes, one is that he can explain one of the universal traits of human politics--that the highest positions of political rule tend to be filled predominantly by men. Political scientists rarely acknowledge--much less explain--this remarkable pattern of male dominance. Ludwig explains it as a manifestation of male primate tendencies rooted in the neurophysiology of the male as shaped by natural selection in evolutionary history. (Surprisingly, Ludwig does not mention Steven Goldberg's book WHY MEN RULE, which makes a similar argument.)
There is one bright spot in Ludwig's otherwise dark vision of politics dominated by Machiavellian brutality--he shows that democratic leaders in established democracies act with more restraint than those in other kinds of regimes. He doesn't explain this. But he could have argued that even this has biological roots by appealing to Christopher Boehm's claim (in his book HIERARCHY IN THE FOREST) that there is a biological basis not only for the natural desire for dominance but also for the natural desire to resist dominance, and that modern democracy expresses that ambivalent political nature by allowing ambitious individuals to compete for high office within the constraints of constitutional structures that protect subordinates from being exploited.
I have developed some of these points in my book DARWINIAN NATURAL RIGHT: THE BIOLOGICAL ETHICS OF HUMAN NATURE.
25 人中、19人の方が、｢このレビューが参考になった｣と投票しています。
A contemporary update of Machiavelli
2002/6/11
形式:ハードカバー
Despite its hard science dressings, this book is primarily a popular (versus academic) account of modern political leadership. Although Dr. Ludwig is obviously knowledgable about psychology, the scientific discourse in this book is kept to a minimum. Mostly, the book consists of a series of highly entertaining anecdotes about famous political figures, collected to support his thesis that political greatness equates possesing the characteristics of the "Alpha Male". The acceptability of this amoralistic conception of "greatness" - where Mao and FDR are co-ranked the greatest modern political leaders with Stalin a close second - is up to each reader to decide.
10 人中、8人の方が、｢このレビューが参考になった｣と投票しています。
Excellent Book
2003/5/17
形式:ハードカバー
I loved reading this book as much as I enjoyed the funny picture on the cover. The thesis that most if not all leaders of people are similar to primate alpha males in the sense that they have more concubines and children, not necessarily more intelligence or ability but more macho desire to rule over others for the sake of ruling (whether known or not by the agent), and that much in the politics of primates and that of humans is remarkably similar is fun to examine and read about. My only desire was that after ten years of studying and researching for this book, maybe the University of Kentucky emeritus psychiatry professor could have focused even more on the roots of the nature of political leaders, both in the primate and strikingly similar human realms. I expected much from this book and did not get as much as I would have hoped, but it was still an excellent read thanks to the depth of research it contains. All national leaders from the 20th century collated and examined as a whole in comparison with primates: maybe there is ample reason to be disappointed in a 400 page book trying to take on so much. Nonetheless, the accounts of the idiosyncracies of certain leaders, the primate-like actions of many, the sloth and greed of others, and other remarkable accounts make this a fabulous book for almost any reader interested in the imperfections of people, especially the most visable people: leaders.
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