The 48 Laws of Power: words, people, things I didn't know of before

Created:22/01/2013 14:50
Updated:21/03/2013 13:02

  • Fouquet spent the last 20 years of his life in solitary confinement.
  • to vaunt
  • Michael III, of the Byzantine Empire
  • the Sung Dynasty ruled China for more than 300 years
  • in 1890 Edison got the New York State prison authorities to organise the world's first execution by electrocution. the man was only half killed and it had to be done twice.
  • Baltasar Gracian.
  • "a Pyrrhic victory"
  • The Subtle Ruse: The Book of Arabic Wisdom and Guile
  • the Trojan horse
  • Empress Wu declared herself a divine descendant of Buddha; she basically killed everybody she had to to continue to reign.
  • Read about the Peloponnesian War.
  • Read The Art of War.
  • Moses said: "utterly destroy them ... make no covenant with them, and show no mercy to them." is there a reference?
  • Carl von Clausewitz
  • Deioces
  • Herodotus
  • capriciously
  • a book about the history of the great wall of china?
  • the Fronde, the French civil war
  • Saint-Simon's writings?
  • Louis XIV's lever
  • propitious
  • caravan
  • shaved heads is an insult in the Mongol code of honor
  • Genghis Khan had Inalchuq killed by having molten silver poured into his eyes and ears
  • The Golden Dream: Seekers of El Dorado, Walker Chapman, 1967.
  • Ch'ung-erh, a fifth century B.C. prince of Ch'in, was forced into exile. Why?
  • biography of Queen Elizabeth I?
  • Simon Foreman, court physician, used his diary to describe his dreams of deflowering her. Did diaries survive?
  • Who succeeded her?
  • Baron Rothschild; bio of the family?
  • the Hollywood 19
  • The Joke, Milan Kundera.
  • Frankfurt Yiddish
  • court society
  • where was Darfur before it was in Sudan?
  • Callisthenes. Calisthenics?
  • 21 Histories, Chinese writings
  • biography of Beau Brummel?
  • why does the Pope say "we" when he means "I"?
  • what does Talleyrand look like?
  • obsequious
  • impugn
  • Pindaric poem
  • dilettante
  • portentously
  • prosaic
  • George Sand
  • protean
  • Promethean
  • Velazquez's painting Las Menias
  • the Greek sea god Proteus
  • The Golden Bough, Sir James Frazer
  • Chinese Cultural Revolution
  • The Day of the Dupes
  • tradition in ancient Egypt for the eldest son (Ptolemy XIII) to marry the eldest sister (Cleopatra)
  • Cleopatra's sister Berenice, bio?
  • master painter Kano Tennyu
  • who is Baltasar Gracian?
  • Italian Inquisition; Borri
  • "Societies of Harmony"
  • boyar
  • Seven Weeks War
  • what was Prussia?
  • see a performance of the Japanese tea ceremony (Cha-no-yu)
  • Osaka rice cake
  • bested
  • The Craft of Power, R.G.H. Siu.
  • Kleppini
  • Houdini managed to make a 1000lb elephant disappear.
  • Adam's Curse, W.B. Yeats.
  • Vasari, the first great art critic, ridiculed Paolo Uccello.
  • The Book of the Courtier
  • P.T. Barnum's autobio still in print?
  • who is Hydra?
  • The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes
  • Ambrose Vollard
  • Cyprus was captured from Venice by the Turks in 1570.
  • George Psalmanazar's history book
  • medicaments
  • Han can Meegeren, a forger of paintings
  • What happened to King Louis XVI?
  • Louis-Philippe came from a different branch of the royal family than his predecessor Charles X
  • rectitude
  • Seneca's imaginary tutor?
  • Napoleon's grand-nephew?
  • to finangle
  • stipend
  • Menelik II
  • Lieh Tzu, quoted in The Chinese Looking Glass, Dennis Bloodworth, 1967
  • bulwark
  • aerie
  • what exactly is excommunication?
  • FDR's dog, Fala
  • The Moon Doctor of Berlin
  • Tower of Babel
  • Dotric-columned
  • silex
  • gestalt
  • Sparta
  • trireme
  • Tommaso Campanella
  • la veglia
  • The Hispanic Monarchy
  • Atheism Conquered
  • "Probatum est."
  • a collection of Machiavelli's letters? if not, the one written to Francesco Guicciardini, May 17 1521.
  • "As regent to the empress Zauditu". What does that mean if she had a husband?
  • Essays in Idleness, Kenko, Japan, 14th century
  • Battle of Blenheim
  • John Vanbrugh
  • potlatch feasts of the American Northwest
  • The Unspoken Way
  • A Pocket Mirror for Heroes, Baltasar Gracian
  • biography of Alexander?
  • ostraka
  • Florence was divided by two rival factions, the Blacks and the Whites
  • Dante Alighieri
  • Marie-Antoinette "sported the most elaborate hair in history".
  • King Wutugu of Wuge's warriors wore an armour of tightly woven vines soaked in oil.
  • A Book of Five Rings, Miyamoto Musashi, Japan, 17th century
  • emissary
  • Yellow Kid Weil recreated a bank! bio?
  • what is a bank dick?