The Hinge Factor: How Chance and Stupidity Have Changed History
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About this ebook
An award-winning war correspondent delves into history’s major conflicts and reveals how—in war—the improbable and inconceivable can determine events.
From the Trojan Horse to a photograph snapped in Vietnam, world history has been shaped as much by chance and error as by courage and heroism. Despite impossible odds, invincible armies fall in bitter defeat to weaker opponents. How and why does this happen? What decides the fate of battle?
Writing with the style and flair that made him an award-winning war correspondent, Erik Durschmied explores the fistful of nails that could have won Waterloo for Napoleon; the barrel of schnapps that proved disastrous for an Austrian emperor; and the three cigars that changed the course of Antietam; and many other instances when chance decided history’s path. Conflicts are decided by the caprice of weather, erroneous intelligence, unlikely heroism, strange coincidence, or individual incompetence—in short, by the unpredictable “hinge factor.”
“[Durschmied] is a supremely gifted reporter who has transformed the media he works in.” —Newsweek
Erik Durschmied
Erik Durschmied was born in Vienna in 1930 and emigrated to Canada after World War II. A television war correspondent for the BBC and CBS, he has covered conflicts in Afghanistan, Belfast, Beirut, Chile, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, and Vietnam, and won numerous awards for his work. He lives in Paris and Provence with his family.
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