Gathered in this book is a collection of flawed plans, half baked ideas, and downright ridiculous machines that, with the best and most optimistic intentions, men have constructed throughout history. Included are such military, scientific, commercial, and infrastructure disasters as: The Lead water [...]

Collected in one volume, here are backfires and blunders that collapsed empires, crashed economies, and altered the course of the world.
From the Maginot Line to the Cuban Missile Crisis, history is filled with bad moves and not-so-bright ideas that snowballed into disasters and unintended cons[...]

Perhaps no living author of imaginative fiction has earned the awards, accolades, respect, and literary reputation of Gene Wolfe. His prose has been called subtle and brilliant, inspiring not just lovers of fantasy and science fiction, but readers of every stripe, transcending genre and defying prec[...]

From the Spanish Armada to the modern age of aircraft carriers, history is littered with horribly bad military ideas on the open seas. Whether a result of lack of planning, miscalculations, a leader's ego, spy infiltration, or just a really stupid idea in the first place, each military defeat is fas[...]