Since when does discourtesy equate with power? Korda's popular 80's "Power" book is filled with anecdotes and advice, seemingly nested in the premise that if people will allow you to abuse them, then you are powerful. Take for example Korda's advice to arrange for a telephone call during a lunch meeting, talk during the entirety of the meeting, then leave after the call is ended, since this proves to them how important and powerful you are. First of all, no serious executive has TIME to hold such frivolous meetings simply to prove a point. Second, while such discourtesy may make you feel empowered once, it's unlikely that you will ever be able to get those at your lunch to meet you again. Finally, as such behaviour is essentially burning bridges, one should hope that you will never require the assistance of anyone at the table in the future, since, assuming they are ever inclined to help, such abuse will ensure that they will rub whatever assistance they provide in your face. I am Southern, and was raised to believe that courtesy was a demonstration of respect to those around you. As "Power" seems to advocate discourtesy, and therefore disrespect, to those you are dealing with, I find the advice tremendously amusing, and it is very unlikely that anyone would seriously achieve results with such tactics. I also spent 2 1/2 years working on Wall Street for an LBO outfit, and 2 1/2 years in Silcon Valley with a VC firm, and can assure all readers of this review that anyone demonstrating the shallow behaviour advocated by this book would soon find himself unemployed and without a network to rely upon. Basically, this book is about seeming powerful in only the most superficial and petty ways, and less about getting power, and certainly not about keeping it. In fact, the effete, almost drag-queen-esque performances this book advocates are likely to make one a laughingstock ("I AM a DIVA!"). "Secrets of a Corporate Headhunter", by John Wareham, has an excellent chapter on "charisma", and the little chapter is worth more in informational content than the entirety of this book.

This wasn't well, written, nor very insightful. Korda in his own memoir dismisses it as kind of a joke of a book that mistakenly got taken seriously.

Korda does his best in explaining the different ways that power is obtained in a corporation. "Power Games" and being properly dressed, it's all in the book. It's also a good look at corporate culture during the 1980's, before the management revolution and downsizing went into effect.

When I ordered this book I thought it was a collection of stories gathered from people who have moved off the grid with some techniques and practices thrown in. Instead what I've found is that it preaches to the choir.

The emphasis is on explaining how we waste energy through our daily on-the-grid lives and what doing so costs in "real" terms of "dead dinosaurs" turned crude oil deposits. If I'm buying this book then it's assumed I already have some concern for the environment and my energy usage, that I already want to "get off the oil" addiction my nation has. Why propound it over and over and over in this book. Why preach environmentalism in a book bought by environmentalists? Why not give them the info they need and the courage to do it through depicting others who've done it already?

There are some stories of how others have gotten off the grid but they are short and don't really go into any of the problems one may encounter or how they can be overcome.

A disappointing book that so easily could have been much much better.

I found this book very disappointing. I was looking for more of a "How-To" book which would provide answers and ideas for a mountain cabin. Instead I found it to contain warm hearted informtion in the form of short stories. At a minimum this books title should be modified to "The Independant Home - Good Hearted American Stories of Living Well with Power from the Sun, Wind, and Water.

Michael Potts traveled the country to interview the new pioneers who are generating their own power. He wound up with a book that is not so much a technical manual as an introduction to the many subjects that pertain to making an independent home: choosing a site and materials, power generation (photovoltaics, wind turbines, hybrid systems), storage batteries, inverters and control panels; appliances, maintenance and repair, gardening and waste disposal.

Independent living is, in short, a great opportunity for anyone compulsive about details, control, and doing it yourself. It is an opportunity to be a settler, and regain some independence, but with the benefit of today's technology.

It would be easy to dismiss the new pioneers as hippies. But at this point in our history, with mounting evidence about the dangers of relying on oil, the subject of renewable energy has become much more conventional. Far from Luddites, these people retain their high-tech habits and possessions, such as computers, TVs, stereos, cars, and air conditioners. But because they produce their own power, they are much more careful with it. Many of them are engineers. Nearly all of them have engineer's habits in their endless tinkering and tweaking, their love of gadgetry, and their search for the next technological improvement. I particularly enjoyed the brief interviews with some of the movement's leading lights: Amory Lovins at the Rocky Mountain Institute; Karen and Richard Perez, the publishers of Home Power Magazine; and Paul Gipe, an owner of wind farms.

As Russell Kirk wrote, nothing is more conservative than conservation, so there is much here that ought to warm the conservative heart: family, localism, community, smallness, decentralization, independence, self-reliance, responsibility, resourcefulness, craftsmanship, and stewardship. The sort of lives that these people live are much more in tune with the local, decentralized United States outlined in the Constitution and The Federalist, the sort of country which existed before the Wilsonian fascism of 1914. By contrast, it was Marx who used the phrase "the idiocy of rural life" and who praised the breakup of traditional communities. The bureaucratic, multinational corporations of our time are much more socialistic in outlook and behavior, contemptuous of roots and continuity, dependent on government money, federal favors, and centralization of power.

This was my first venture into the field of independent home-building, and I had only a few reservations: some predictable left-wing cliches and cheerleading, lapses in organization, blurring of Potts' interviews with his own comments, and a loss of focus perhaps due to the ambitious attempt to write a "whole guide" to home-building rather than a modest introduction to a vast subject. When the book remains modest, it succeeds. It should fire up the pioneers among us.

A loser book about a manipulative, narcissitc, sociopath...and those are his most positive traits. Save your money. Go buy People Magazine.

Singular gives a boring and insightless account of Ovits - a power player in Hollywood for over two decades. This book left me wanting more

As an entertainment attorney, and a professor of entertainment studies, I can ASSURE you that this book is one of the VERY BEST books EVER written on power in the entertainment industry. The author goes into captivating detail and commentary on the industry--its powerful personalities, its structure, and its operation. Virtually every page reveals golden nuggets of information--teasing you to read on. The author has a wonderful ability to both arose your intellectual curiousity and evoke your emotions--all at the same time--at times, I found myself mentally & emotionally overwhelmed!

I found this book to be extremely basic with very short chapters. The contents were good topics for learning but very little was presented. A journey industrial maintenance electrician/electronics technician would find no challange to reading this except for the two manufacturer's schematics.

This book is strictley for the novice.

Although I usually read Michael Williams DragonLance novels I bought this book as it seemed the only intresting one in the quite understocked shop.Knowing Michael Williams for his poetry in the dragonlance novels and his own novels in the series such as weasels luck I was expecting even a partially decent novel, and although the prologue was good the book rapidly fell downhill, becoming confusing with a boring plot, unoriginal characters and some actual gaping holes in the plot as far as I can see, such as basing the novel in a fantasy land and then refering to places in the real world. The book was a struggle to finish reading and must be one of the only books I can remember not having enjoyed. After reading such poor material I almost feel I could do better myself and am warning you if you enjoy michael williams work stay away from this book as it will only be a dissapointment.

If you've never owned a business and don't know the first thing about mail order, this book is for you. It is a very basic primer, written for people who have little money but want to start a mail order business. Most of the guidelines and suggestions target the small business venture, selling items for less than $10.00. The author uses the example of someone who imprints golf balls and sells them, presumably for a small price.

There are valid suggestions concerning all of the details you must consider when launching a business. These, however are best covered in a book which addresses items in detail. For example, a short section mentions the pros and cons of selecting various business entities, partnerships, corporations and the like. But the author is not an expert in law, nor in many of the other sections he ventures into, so the end result is a lot of information that is better covered in other sources.

The crux of the book, are twelve steps one should use to start a mail order venture. All are valid and useful. But they are only a few pages. My reservation begins in the financial section (since one of the books premises is that this business can be started for about 10k). In the financial section, all of the numbers are out of date and some are ridiculous. For example, software is listed as $100.00. That wouldn't buy a word processing program today. The author also continues the poor illustration of the golf ball printer and add these example costs to a sample financial plan.

Overall, if you're looking to break into the mail order business and have no experience at all, this book might help. Or it might not. In any case, the reader and author would have gained more from sticking to mail order only and leaving legal, and the rest to experts. I would have liked to see a section for example on how to save costs ( printing, set-up and graphics). Instead, I got advice on advertising my products on matchboxes. Sure, it's fine for some products. But, unless you're selling those golfballs this may not be the book for you.

First, this book is clear written and holds most basics about frauds/deceivers misusing the esoterics. Sadly Mr. Kraig forgot that before Daath no relevant book can be written and when being M.T. or Magus, there is no more need to write books. The road to hell is full of good intentions, so is this book, but Mr. Kraig forgot that it is the "infernalist" who learned to survive there. Black Magick, white magick, a beginners dabbling, hypocricy. The mere fact that he operates from a primitive "faith" in magick displays that he does not have checked it's symbolism and got trapped in fallacies. The fact that there are frauds is for sure, but the chapters deal with the oldfashioned and superstitious view of the crafts. And sadly, this booklet is thin, short files on each topic only. Sad, I wished you were better. Anyway, for that price it's fun! oh, guys like Crowley said "study the stars" does that mean astrology? No, he also mentioned that "everyone of us is a star" so that psychology and other personal studies of fellow humans would be much closer. Strong Faith does not compensate lack of wits, neither does it make your wishes come true or make your fears go away. Especially, because faith is a christian principle, which magick most certainly isn't.