Gino LaPaglia’s book, The Cultural Roots of Strategic Intelligence popped up when I ran a search for “thick face, black heart.”
I ordered it as soon as I read the summary, the epigraph, the chapter titles, and two sentences in the preface!
At many things, of wonders and terrors we are awestruck
But nothing more than man, cleverest of all…
Who catches through cunning in deadly nets,
flocks of birds, prides of beast and schools of fish,
and masters beasts with ruse, harnesses horses, and the bull.
Sophocles, Antigone (Full disclosure: I was chosen to play Antigone for my co-hort at The Aspen Institute years ago!)
Chapter 1 Cultural Genealogy: theory and method
Chapter 2 Greco-Roman Strategic Intelligence: strategic heroes, divine, and human
Chapter 3 Greco-Roman Strategic Intelligence: beasts and philosophers
Chapter 4 the Legacy of Judeo-Christian Strategic Intelligence
Chapter 5 The Patrimony of Medieval and Renaissance Strategic Intelligence
Chapter 6 Toward a Cultural Genealogy of Chinese Strategic Intelligence
Chapter 7 The Endowment of Chinese Strategic Intelligence: strategic official them
Chapter 8 Thick Black Theory 厚黑學
Strategic intelligence emerges historically as a heroic form of hope that promises the possibility of strategic advantage, value, dignity, freedom, the achievement of objective, and the fulfillment of potential in hostile environments. Paradoxically, it also has the potential to deny these outcomes when wielded by a skillful adversary.
There is gold here for my pursuit of a theory of new venture strategy!
I ordered it as soon as I read the summary, the epigraph, the chapter titles, and two sentences in the preface!
At many things, of wonders and terrors we are awestruck
But nothing more than man, cleverest of all…
Who catches through cunning in deadly nets,
flocks of birds, prides of beast and schools of fish,
and masters beasts with ruse, harnesses horses, and the bull.
Sophocles, Antigone (Full disclosure: I was chosen to play Antigone for my co-hort at The Aspen Institute years ago!)
Chapter 1 Cultural Genealogy: theory and method
Chapter 2 Greco-Roman Strategic Intelligence: strategic heroes, divine, and human
Chapter 3 Greco-Roman Strategic Intelligence: beasts and philosophers
Chapter 4 the Legacy of Judeo-Christian Strategic Intelligence
Chapter 5 The Patrimony of Medieval and Renaissance Strategic Intelligence
Chapter 6 Toward a Cultural Genealogy of Chinese Strategic Intelligence
Chapter 7 The Endowment of Chinese Strategic Intelligence: strategic official them
Chapter 8 Thick Black Theory 厚黑學
Strategic intelligence emerges historically as a heroic form of hope that promises the possibility of strategic advantage, value, dignity, freedom, the achievement of objective, and the fulfillment of potential in hostile environments. Paradoxically, it also has the potential to deny these outcomes when wielded by a skillful adversary.
There is gold here for my pursuit of a theory of new venture strategy!