CompleteMartialArts.com - Hard Call
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List Price: $11.99
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Manufacturer: Twelve
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Kindle Edition
Dewey Decimal Number: 920
Format: Kindle Book
Label: Twelve
Manufacturer: Twelve
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 480
Publication Date: 2007-08-14
Publisher: Twelve
Release Date: 2007-08-14
Studio: Twelve
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Editorial Reviews:
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America's most inspiring politician pays tribute to men and woman who have exhibited composure, wisdom and intellect in the face of tough decisions. He draws from experiences of both extraordinary people and people in extraordinary circumstances, culling lessons about the process and nature of judicious and effective decision-making.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Hard Calls and Good History
Comment: Certainly the timing of this book's release and its review of tough decision making are not coincidental to John McCain's presidential campaign. This does not detract from its value. As do Barack Obama's books (for example, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance), it tells us what a political leader wants us to know about his view of the world. To McCain and Slater, decision making is characterized by Awareness, Foresight, Timing, Confidence, Humility and Inspiration. These qualities are examined through 20 case studies, including Gerald Ford's decision to pardon Richard Nixon and the efforts of Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat to achieve peace between their countries.
The book's structure presents some choices. First, it can be read as ordered, with a discussion of each aspect of leadership followed by historical examples. It runs a little long this way, though. I listened to it as an audio book and felt like I was trudging though history on foot. Worth the walk, but quite a trek.
Readers with more selective interests might sample just the stories that intrigue or that fill gaps in their historical knowledge. It is worthwhile to learn about the history of Liberia or experience another perspective on Alexander Graham Bell's inventiveness. Each of the 20 decision scenarios is a self-contained story, which facilitates such picking and choosing.
Finally, readers eager to examine John McCain's leadership style can confine themselves to the book's introduction, and to the introductory chapters in each of the six sections. These chapters point to the kind of decisions he admires, what he has learned from them, and how he--and we--can make decisions like them. Whether you agree with him or not, his brand of decision making is made plain to be understood and evaluated.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Written by a Charlatan
Comment: McCain has never tried to work through a tough decision. His own autobiography describes (although the description is watered down) his duplicity that got American service men killed. If you want to buy a book about hard decisions then buy it from someone who has made one.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Hard Call: The Art of Great Decisions
Comment: This is an excellent book. One of the finest, most thought-provoking books I have read.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Preview of a Possible Presidency
Comment: McCain's book, moreso than that of other politicians, does give you a feel for how he would be as a president. His view of what is a hard call is very relevant.
I do have a quibble in that early on he criticizes the faulty intelligence leading to the Iraq war, then closes the Niebuhr/Bonhoffer chapter under "Humility" with the suggestion they would possibly back the
Iraq war today.
But it does have a variety of history of an era that I lived through but did not pick up on during my childhood, and does give a view of the man.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Worth Sharing
Comment: So good, I wanted to share with my four grandsons by sending each his own personal copy with a note from Grandpa.
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