The Power of Nothing to Lose
The Hail Mary Effect in Politics, War, and Business
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Narrated by:
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Fred Sanders
About this listen
Following books by Malcolm Gladwell and Dan Ariely, noted economics professor William L. Silber explores the Hail Mary effect, from its origins in sports to its applications to history, nature, politics, and business.
A quarterback like Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers gambles with a Hail Mary pass at the end of a football game when he has nothing to lose - the risky throw might turn defeat into victory, or end in a meaningless interception. Rodgers may not realize it, but he has much in common with figures such as George Washington, Rosa Parks, Woodrow Wilson, and Adolph Hitler, all of whom changed the modern world with their risk-loving decisions.
In The Power of Nothing to Lose, award-winning economist William Silber explores the phenomenon in politics, war, and business, where situations with a big upside and limited downside trigger gambling behavior like with a Hail Mary. Silber describes in colorful detail how the American Revolution turned on such a gamble. The famous scene of Washington crossing the Delaware on Christmas night to attack the enemy may not look like a Hail Mary, but it was. Washington said days before his risky decision, “If this fails I think the game will be pretty well up.” Rosa Parks remained seated in the white section of an Alabama bus, defying local segregation laws, an act that sparked the modern civil rights movement in America. It was a life-threatening decision for her, but she said, “I was not frightened. I just made up my mind that as long as we accepted that kind of treatment it would continue, so I had nothing to lose.”
The risky exploits of George Washington and Rosa Parks made the world a better place, but demagogues have inflicted great damage with Hail Marys. Towards the end of World War II, Adolph Hitler ordered a desperate counterattack, the Battle of the Bulge, to stem the Allied advance into Germany. He said, “The outcome of the battle would spell either life or death for the German nation.” Hitler failed to change the war’s outcome, but his desperate gamble inflicted great collateral damage, including the worst wartime atrocity on American troops in Europe.
Silber shares these illuminating insights on these figures and more, from Woodrow Wilson to Donald Trump, asylum seekers to terrorists and rogue traders. Collectively they illustrate that downside protection fosters risky undertakings, that it changes the world in ways we least expect.
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The Man Without a Face is the chilling account of how a low-level, small-minded KGB operative ascended to the Russian presidency and, in an astonishingly short time, destroyed years of progress and made his country once more a threat to its own people and to the world.
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A Preview of Authoritarianism in the USA
- By Jimmy O on 06-08-19
By: Masha Gessen
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The Plot to Seize the Whitehouse
- The Shocking True Story of the Conspiracy to Overthrow FDR
- By: Jules Archer
- Narrated by: Ken Maxon
- Length: 8 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Most people will be shocked to learn that in 1933 a cabal of wealthy industrialists - in league with groups like the K.K.K. and the American Liberty League - planned to overthrow the U.S. government in a fascist coup. Their plan was to turn discontented veterans into American "brown shirts," depose F.D.R., and stop the New Deal. They clandestinely asked Medal of Honor recipient and Marine Major General Smedley Darlington Butler to become the first American Caesar. He, though, was a true patriot and revealed the plot to journalists and to Congress.
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Good storytelling, poor voice-over
- By Wayne Hughes on 02-12-13
By: Jules Archer
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Operation Snow
- How a Soviet Mole in FDR’s White House Triggered Pearl Harbor
- By: John Koster
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 6 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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On December 7, 1941, the nation of Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and prompted the United States’ entry into the bloodiest war in human history. Americans have long debated the cause of the bombing; many have argued that the attack was a brilliant Japanese military coup or a failure of US intelligence agencies or even a conspiracy of the Roosevelt administration. But despite the attention historians have paid to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the truth about that fateful day has remained a mystery - until now.
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PUT IT IN THE FILE BLAMING FDR FOR PEARL HARBOR
- By Ron on 11-21-20
By: John Koster
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State of War
- MS-13 and El Salvador's World of Violence
- By: William Wheeler
- Narrated by: William Wheeler
- Length: 3 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Born in Los Angeles, the gang MS-13 was founded in the 1980s by Salvadoran refugees who had been hardened in a civil war stoked by American foreign policy. Foreign correspondent William Wheeler tracks MS-13 from LA, where he meets the founders of the gang, to El Salvador, where three generations of Salvadorans have been drawn into an escalating cycle of conflict. State of War tells the tragic story of a brutal civil war that has never ended.
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Great insight!
- By jose flores on 05-19-23
By: William Wheeler
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God's Hand on America
- Divine Providence in the Modern Era
- By: Michael Medved
- Narrated by: Michael Medved
- Length: 15 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Has God withdrawn his special blessing from the United States? Americans ponder that painful question in troubled times, as we did during the devastation of the Civil War and after the assassinations of the '60s, and as we do in our present polarization. Yet, somehow - on battlefields, across western wilderness, and in raucous convention halls - astounding events have reliably advanced America, restoring faith in the Republic’s providential protection. In this provocative historical narrative, Michael Medved brings to life 10 haunting tales that reveal this purposeful pattern.
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Every American is so fortunate
- By Anonymous User on 06-23-20
By: Michael Medved
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Don't Know Much About the Civil War
- Everything You Need to Know About America's Greatest Conflict but Never Learned
- By: Kenneth C. Davis
- Narrated by: Dick Estell
- Length: 16 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Millions of Americans, bored by dull textbooks, are in the dark about the most significant event in our history. Now New York Times bestselling author Kenneth C. Davis comes to the rescue, deftly sorting out the players, the politics, and the key events—Emancipation and Reconstruction, Shiloh and Gettysburg, Generals Grant and Lee, Harriet Beecher Stowe—and much more.
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Good Civil War book
- By Steven on 08-04-12
By: Kenneth C. Davis
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Surrounded by Enemies
- What if Kennedy Survived Dallas?
- By: Bryce Zabel
- Narrated by: Edd Hall
- Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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If President John Kennedy had survived the ambush at Dealey Plaza in Dallas a half-century ago, what other twists might history have taken? In his meticulously researched novel, Surrounded by Enemies: What If Kennedy Survived Dallas, author Bryce Zabel delivers a supercharged but plausible alternative narrative of the turbulent 1960s after our charismatic president escapes unscathed on November 22, 1963.
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Makes a classic "alternate history" mistake
- By Norman on 11-16-14
By: Bryce Zabel
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The Less You Know, the Better You Sleep
- Russia's Road to Terror and Dictatorship Under Yeltsin and Putin
- By: David Satter
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 5 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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In this book Satter tells the story of the apartment bombings and how Boris Yeltsin presided over the criminalization of Russia, why Vladimir Putin was chosen as his sucessor, and how Putin has suppressed all opposition while retaining the appearance of a pluralist state. As the threat represented by Russia becomes increasingly clear, Satter's description of where Russia is and how it got there will be of vital interest to anyone concerned about the dangers facing the world today.
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David understands Russia better than Russians do
- By Grigory on 04-05-17
By: David Satter
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The Compatriots
- The Brutal and Chaotic History of Russia's Exiles, Émigrés, and Agents Abroad
- By: Andrei Soldatov, Irina Borogan
- Narrated by: Nick Sullivan
- Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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The history of Russian espionage is soaked in blood, from a spontaneous pistol shot that killed a secret policeman in Romania in 1924 to the attempt to poison an exiled KGB colonel in Salisbury, England, in 2017. Russian émigrés have found themselves continually at the center of the mayhem. Russians began leaving the country in big numbers in the late 19th century, fleeing pogroms, tsarist secret police persecution, and the Revolution, then Stalin and the KGB - and creating the third-largest diaspora in the world.
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Great book. Extremely detailed history of the USSR
- By M. Gordon on 03-03-20
By: Andrei Soldatov, and others
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Please Scream Inside Your Heart
- Breaking News and Nervous Breakdowns in the Year That Wouldn't End
- By: Dave Pell
- Narrated by: John Parsons, Peter Coyote, L. J. Ganser, and others
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Please Scream Inside Your Heart is a time capsule; a real-time ride through the maddening hell that was the 2020 news cycle - when historic turmoil and media mania stretched American sanity, democracy, and toilet paper. Who better to examine this unhinged period in all of its twists and turns than news addict Dave Pell, a.k.a. the internet’s managing editor?
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Couldn’t stop listening!!
- By Rofar4 on 11-16-21
By: Dave Pell
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Every Man a King
- A Short, Colorful History of American Populists
- By: Chris Stirewalt
- Narrated by: Chris Stirewalt
- Length: 4 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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American populism has always been home to a fascinating assortment of charismatic leaders, characters, kooks, cranks, and sometimes charlatans who have led the charge of ordinary folks who have gotten wise to the ways of the swamp. Every Man a King tells the stories of America's populist leaders, from Andrew Jackson and Teddy Roosevelt to Ross Perot, Pat Buchanan, and Donald Trump. It is a rollicking history of an American attitude that has shaped not only our current moment, but also the long struggle over who gets to define the truths we hold to be self evident.
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Education delivered in a most entertaining way.
- By Snaps And Snippets on 09-17-18
By: Chris Stirewalt
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New World Coming
- The 1920s and the Making of Modern America
- By: Nathan Miller
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 18 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Jazz. Bootleggers. Flappers. Talkies. Model T Fords. Lindbergh's history-making flight over the Atlantic. The 1920s was also the decade of the hard-won vote for women, racial injustice, censorship, social conflict, and the birth of organized crime.
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My High School History Class Never Told
- By Charles Stembridge on 06-29-04
By: Nathan Miller
What listeners say about The Power of Nothing to Lose
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Anonymous User
- 09-12-21
This book should have been a podcast
I must reluctantly describe this book as an overwhelming disappointment. The prevailing feeling is that the author took an interesting concept that naturally covered about 45 minutes, and stretched it to fill a book. The premise--that people make different decisions when they perceive they have nothing to lose--is a fascinating one. And the examples of this--such as outgoing presidents issuing ill-advised pardons and rouge traders making ruinous bets--make the book interesting. But in each topical chapter, the author includes far, far too much extraneous detail that seemingly serves only to bolster the page count. Rosa Parks' decision to refuse vacating her seat, when viewed and told through this lens, is an excellent story that the author tells well. But the extraneous detail concerning how many ministers it took to organize the Montgomery bus boycott, which church they met at, how many people showed up, and similar details--though worthwhile information for historical analysis--didn't factor in the author's assessment of decision making with nothing/little to lose. Ditto the assessment of President Bill Clinton's dubious decion to pardon Marc Rich: the author easily concludes that having 'nothing to lose' made Clinton pardon the unpardonable Rich for dubious, ulterior motives. But the lengthy recitation of detail presented but never analyzed makes the chapter a drudge.
In a variation on the theme, the author also includes superfluous information that both bolsters the page count and undercuts his premise. An interesting chapter dealing with how to make inmates serving life sentences have 'something to lose' is inexplicably headlined by instances of life-sentence inmates perpetuating grisly violence, which, for reasons of his own, the author recouts in blood-curdling detail. This strange miscalculation gives the instances the author considers outliers overly-comprehdnsive treatment. An inmate brutally killing another does nothing to support the claim (made only after delay) that life-sentence inmates are often model prisoners, and the graphic details, notes to prison psychiatrists, letters the attacked inmate sent home before the attack, and subsequent lawsuits seem wholly out of place and beside the point, which the author contends is that such attacks are rare.
This book has all the indicia of a great insight being padded with tangential information to fill a book. It would have been an excellent podcast had the author not gotten greedy.
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- Jason
- 06-06-22
Good Thought; Random Stories
In depth stories that feel bias and random.
The title is better than the book.
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