Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.Sample Book Insights: #1 The pursuit by governments of policies that are contrary to their own interests is a phenomenon that has occurred throughout history. Man makes a poorer performance of government than any other human activity.#2 Government can be conducted for four types of reasons: tyranny, excessive ambition, incompetence, and perversity. Perversity is when a policy is pursued that is contrary to the self-interest of the state.#3 The French Revolution, great example of populist government, reverted quickly to autocracy once it acquired an able administrator. The revolutionary regimes of Jacobins and Directorate could manage their own followers enough to keep order, but they could not collect taxes or install a competent administration.#4 The classic case of wooden-headedness was Plan 17, the French war plan of 1914, which concentrated on a French advance to the Rhine. The assumption was that the Germans could not deploy enough manpower to extend their invasion around through western Belgium and the French coastal provinces.