Oliver Thomson - A Short History of Human Error

A Short History of Human Error

and its causes from 3000 BC to the present day

Oliver Thomson is the author of ten books on historical subjects, also several guide books and a play. Having won a scholarship in Classics to Trinity College Cambridge he changed tack to read history and later gained a PhD at Glasgow University on propaganda history. He spent some 25 years as managing director of two advertising agencies but also continued writing, lecturing and broadcasting on radio. The primary aim of this book is to use modern psychological criteria to examine the personality flaws of political, religious and economic leaders over the last three millennia and relate them to the many man-made disasters for which they were responsible.

By the same Author

Mass Persuasion in History

The History of Sin

Easily Led a History of Propaganda

The Great Feud

The Bloody Heart

The Romanovs Europes most obsessive Dynasty

The Rises and Falls of the Royal Stewarts

The Impossible Bourbons

The Other Kaisers

A Short History of Human Error

And its causes from 3000 BC to the present day

Oliver Thomson

Arena Books

Copyright Oliver Thomson 2013

The right of Oliver Thomson to be identified as the author of this work

has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and

Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2013 by Arena Books

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Oliver Thomson

A Short History of Human Error and its causes from 3000 BC to the present day

British Library cataloguing in Publication Data. A Catalogue record for this

book is available from the British Library.

E-book ISBN 978-1-909421-35-6

ISBN-13 978-1-909421-26-4

BIC classifications:- HBTB, JMF, HBG, JMP, HBL.

Printed and bound by Lightning Source UK

Cover design

By Jason Anscomb

Typeset in

Times New Roman

CONTENTS

(Pages below refer to the printed edition of this book.)

Introduction page - 17

CHAPTER 1

KLEPTOMANIA

Sargon,Thotmes II,Rameses II,Attila the Hun,Bohemond, Philip

the Fair, Genghis Khan,Sir John Hawkins, Cortes, Pizarro,

Napoleon, Leopold II, Hitler, Mao, Suharto, Marcos, Mobutu,

Milosevic, Duvalier, Fujiwara, Noriega

Herd Kleptomania : Athens, Rome, Muslims,Vikings.Ottomans,

Aztecs, Stroganovs, East India Company, Africa, corruption

Commercial and State Kleptomania : Enron, Ponzi,Madoff, Lehmans,

Dionysius of Syracuse, Caracalla, Philip IV,Frederick IV, James II,

Charles V, Henry VIII,Charles I, Frederick the Great, George

Washington, Harold Wilson, Robert Mugabe, American and French

Revolutions, Carnegie,Rockefeller, Berezovsky and other Russian

oligarchs,Tanaka page - 19

CHAPTER 2

PARANOID NARCISSISM

Ashur Nasirpah, Periander, Xerxes, Alexander the Great,Qin Shi

Huang, Wu Han,Antiochus, Herod, Hannibal,Tiberius,Caligula,

Nero, Justinian,Theodoric,Al Mansur, Harun al Rashid,

Mohammed of Ghazni, Abdul Hamid, Richard II, Inca Huayna

Capac, Moctezuma II, Qian Long, John Smith, Chong Shen, Nadir

Shah, Louis XIV, Napoleon, Lord Cardigan, General Custer, Kossuth,

Fernando I, Ludendorff, Hindenburg, Hitler,Franco, Macarthur,

Nixon,Verwoerd, Mao,Chiang kai Chek, Assad,Karadzic, Mobutu,

Suharto, Idi Amin,Duvalier, Habyarimana, Marcos, Charles Taylor,

Laurent Gbagbo, Mohammed Omar, Anders Breivik

Non-psychopathic narcissists: Ah Cacao, Godoy, Metternich,

von Bulow, de Redcliffe, Georges Boulanger page - 31

CHAPTER 3

VIRAL PARANOIA

Juntas : Thailand,Nigeria,Argentina, Greece ,Chile, Burmah

Paranoid Wives : Lady Macbeth, Hatshepsut, Jezebel, Boudicca,

Zenobia,Wu Zhao, Razia Sultan,Martha Ludendorff,Mira

Milosevic, Bandaranaika, Indira Gandhi

Malignant Narcissism : de Sade,Giles de Rais, Torquemada,

Elizabeth Bathory, Josef Mengele,Shiro Ishii

Viral Sadism: Assyrians, Nazis,Japanese, Hutus and Tutsi

Viral Paranoia : Assyrians, Spartans, Romans, Jacobins, Germans,

Young Turks, Russians, Japanese, Cultural Revolution, India

Praetorian Guard Syndrome: Rome,Baghdad,Moscow, Istanbul

Post-mortal Narcissism : Egyptians, Japanese,Chinese

Sc hizophrenia: Caligula, Caliph Ibrahim,Eric XIV, Al Hakim,

Mad Juana, Sirhan Sirhan, spree killers page - 56

CHAPTER 4

INADEQUACY COMPENSATION

Height : Alexander the Great, Attila,Charles III, Charles I and Laud,

Napoleon, Sarkozy, Stephen Douglas, Madison, Wilberforce,Lord

John Russell,Nicholas II, Gavrilo Princip, Stalin and Hitler,

Ceausescu, Deng Xiao Ping, Gaddafi, Kim Jong Il, Medvedev, Pope

Gregory VII

B astardy or Ancestry Problems :Sargon,Sulla,Constantine,Wu

Zhao, Charles Martel,William the Conqueror,Monmouth, Berwick,

Mansfeld, Robespierre, Canning, Hindenburg, Lloyd George,

Shaka,Weygand, Hirohito, Trujillo, Milosevic, Castro, Reagan,

Obama, Lula, Fatimids, Ahmedinejad

Anorexia and Bulimia ; Catherine of Siena,Mary of Oignies,Saint

Angela, Saint Veronica, Emperor Claudius

Intellectual Inferiority and Dyslexia :Pol Pot, Ribbentrop, George

W.Bush,Commodus,Charlemagne, Akbar, Charles I, Frederick

William III, Woodrow Wilson,

Fear of Fear : Genghis Khan, King Stephen, Bismarck, Salisbury

Anhedonia: Monks,Sufis,Fakirs, Julian of Norwich, Mani, Buddha

Insecurity and Susceptibility: Disciples, Frederick Prince of

Wales, Tsar Alexander I,Henry III, Frederick William IV, Berchtold,

Heydrich, Eichmann,Tony Blair,Bush, Richard Reid page - 76

CHAPTER 5

SEXUAL SUBLIMATION

Achilles, David and Jonathan, Epaminondas, Alcibiades, Plato,

Agesilaus,Gaozu, Julius Caesar, Hadrian, Elagabalus, William II, Zen

monks, Richard Lionheart,Tsar PeterIII,Basil II,Bayezit, Edward II,

Henri III, Frederick the Great,Rudolf II, James VI and I,Orleans,

Vendme, Wolfe, Queen Kristina, Louis XIII, Karl XII, Gustav III,

Louis XVI, Louis XVIII, Napoleon, Hector Macdonald, Cecil

Rhodes, Kitchener, Krupp, Eulenburg, Ataturk, Rhm, Hitler,

Joan of Arc, Elizabeth I , Pope Alexander VI, Saint Paul, Origen.

Favourites: Jiru,Sejanus,Cleander,Gaveston, Despenser,Cochrane,

Rizzio, Carr,Buckingham, Abigail Masham,Bentinck, Keppel,

Mignons, Lerma, Olivarez, Menshikov, Potemkin

Oedipus Complex : Alexander the Great,Jahangir, Frederick Prince

of Wales page - 102

CHAPTER 6

BIPOLAR DISORDER

Saul,David, St Francis,St Catherine, Luther, Shebetai Zevi, John

Wesley, Joanna Southwood, Joseph Smith, Oliver Cromwell,

Felipe V, Potemkin,Pitt the Elder, Castlereagh, Mazzini, Lincoln,

John Brown, John Wilkes Booth, John Bellingham,Coolidge,Hayes,

Pierce,Hong Xiuqan, Queen Victoria, Prince Rudolf, Churchill, Stalin,

Mao, Wilhelm II,Yeltsin,Gaddafi,Hamid Karzai page - 119

CHAPTER 7

ATTENTION DEFICITY HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER

Genghis Khan, Empress Matilda,King John, Emperor Frederick II,