We help you accumulate and internalize the experiences of nine, relatively unknown, intelligent fanatic giants. We also contrast their leadership styles against less successful companies during the time period. The intelligent fanatic blueprint holds true across every time period, continent, and industry.

How does a great company sustain and grow profits for decades? Many people are familiar with Warren Buffett's analogy of a moat: various defenses to thwart competition. But moats are fleeting; they are here today and gone tomorrow. The more important question is, who builds and maintains moats? Intelligent fanatics do. These leaders build high-performance organizations that can dominate for decades. Intelligent Fanatics Project looks at the stories of eight intelligent fanatics who built dominant and enduring businesses. A $1,000 investment with each of these intelligent fanatics would, on average, have been worth $3.4 million thirty-seven years later--a 24.6% compounded annual return. They operated in a wide array of industries, in different time periods, on different continents, and against different economic backdrops, yet their leadership styles, strategies, corporate cultures, and values were similar. Intelligent fanatics are what every entrepreneur aspires to be and what every long-term investor dreams of finding and investing in early. Sean Iddings and Ian Cassel examine the common traits of these intelligent fanatics, to help both the investor and the entrepreneur generate extraordinary returns.

Intelligent Fanatics of India seeks to apply the framework developed in our first two books and our website to a carefully chosen group of seven Indian entrepreneurs from diverse industries. The list includes private as well as public companies, first generation entrepreneurs as well as entrepreneurs from established business families, well-run businesses as well as turnarounds.

A wide-ranging, controversial collection of critical essays on the political mania plaguing the West by one of the most important public intellectuals of our time. In America and in England, faltering economies at home and failed wars abroad have generated a political and intellectual hysteria. It is a derangement manifested in a number of ways: nostalgia for imperialism, xenophobic paranoia, and denunciations of an allegedly intolerant left. These symptoms can be found even among the most informed of Anglo-America. In Bland Fanatics, Pankaj Mishra examines the politics and culture of this hysteria, challenging the dominant establishment discourses of our times. In essays that grapple with the meaning and content of Anglo-American liberalism and its relations with colonialism, the global South, Islam, and “humanitarian” war, Mishra confronts writers such as Jordan Peterson, Niall Ferguson, and Salman Rushdie. He describes the doubling down of an intelligentsia against a background of weakening Anglo-American hegemony, and he explores the commitments of Ta-Nehisi Coates and the ideological determinations of The Economist. These essays provide a vantage point from which to understand the current crisis and its deep origins.

The modern materialist approach to life has conspicuously failed to explain such central mind-related features of our world as consciousness, intentionality, meaning, and value. This failure to account for something so integral to nature as mind, argues philosopher Thomas Nagel, is a major problem, threatening to unravel the entire naturalistic world picture, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology. Since minds are features of biological systems that have developed through evolution, the standard materialist version of evolutionary biology is fundamentally incomplete. And the cosmological history that led to the origin of life and the coming into existence of the conditions for evolution cannot be a merely materialist history, either. An adequate conception of nature would have to explain the appearance in the universe of materially irreducible conscious minds, as such. Nagel's skepticism is not based on religious belief or on a belief in any definite alternative. In Mind and Cosmos, he does suggest that if the materialist account is wrong, then principles of a different kind may also be at work in the history of nature, principles of the growth of order that are in their logical form teleological rather than mechanistic. In spite of the great achievements of the physical sciences, reductive materialism is a world view ripe for displacement. Nagel shows that to recognize its limits is the first step in looking for alternatives, or at least in being open to their possibility.

Though some dismiss opera as old-fashioned, it shows no sign of disappearing from the world's stage. So why do audiences continue to flock to it? Opera lovers are an intense lot, Benzecry discovers in his look at the fanatics who haunt the legendary Colón Opera House in Buenos Aires.

As America's leaders fight pre-emptive wars abroad and ordinary Americans fight to keep their heads above water here at home, Arianna Huffington offers a no-holds-barred account of where we stand and a clear and remarkable vision of where we should be headed. Taking aim at the ruthless fanatics in the Bush White House and the feckless fools in the all-too-compliant Democratic opposition, the best-selling author of Pigs at the Trough paints a scathing picture of our contemporary political landscape -- peopled with scoundrels and cowards, and awash in the constant and corrosive flow of dirty money. But the book doesn't stop there. Over the course of her run for governor of California, Arianna Huffington learned that criticism and outrage are not enough. She lays out her game plan for winning back America from our not-so-compassionately-conservative president, now firmly and happily in the grip of right-wing radicals like Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and John Ashcroft. With the 2004 election fast approaching, Arianna Huffington sees fire in the ashes of the Democratic Party and reason for hope that this can be the year that the people finally take back control of their government and their country. Fearless, funny, in full command of the facts, and ever passionate, Arianna Huffington offers not just a chapter-and-verse diagnosis of the fanaticism that drives the Bush White House but a bold vision of New Responsibility for rebuilding our broken democracy. If you want to know what you can do to restore America to the promise and moral greatness envisioned by our greatest leaders, from Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt to FDR and Bobby Kennedy, this book is required reading. These are big dreams, but, as Arianna argues, anything smaller guarantees the reelection of George Bush. Book jacket.

HOW TO USE YOUR HUMAN ADVANTAGE TO OUTPERFORM ALGORITHMS IN THE OPTIONS MARKET If you're a value investor who wants to get your money into the lucrative options market, forget about day trading, chart patterns, and market timing. This systematic book lays out a path to long-term wealth by taking positions on companies with real intrinsic value--the kind Ben Graham and Warren Buffett would invest in. Leave the complex algorithms and "Greeks" for the floor traders. Erik Kobayashi-Solomon, former investment banker, hedge fund risk manager, and valuation consultant to the World Bank, gives you the knowledge and sophisticationto understand what options pricing reveals about the market's estimation of future stock prices. He then demonstrates how to find tremendous opportunity for low-risk, high-profit investments in the difference between the market's mechanized price ranges and ones madeby you, a thoughtful human being armed with the insight this book offers. Everything you need to make options a powerfulcontributor to your portfolio is inside, including: A thorough explanation of what options are and what their prices can tell you about the market's expectations for the future price of a stock A proven way to envision the risk/reward trade-off for stocks and options and a straightforward method to use theflexibility and directionality of options to tilt the risk/return balance in your favor A robust and intuitive framework for assessing the value of a company Strategies to avoid the most common behavioral pitfalls Tips for using the information on an option-pricing screen Thorough coverage of important option investment strategies, including "covered calls," "protective puts," and "collars" Regardless of your experience level with options, this versatile guide makes you a better investor. Beginners get a turnkey solution to growing wealth in options, experienced investors gain savvy guidance for fine-tuning their practices, and professional investors learn how to effectively incorporate options into a portfolio. Understanding valuation in this perceptive light lets you earn the consistent profi ts of The IntelligentOption Investor. The Intelligent Option Investor is the hands-on guide to using a cuttingedge valuation framework in the fast-paced options market to boost growth, protect gains, and generate income. It explains how to use your insightful human mind to recognize when mechanized options pricing undervalues a stock. Once you see an opportunity, you'll have all the tools you need to execute a fact-based decision about how and when to invest in the company. Have your money make the most for you with the potent blend of timehonored value investing strategies and hot options vehicles in The Intelligent Option Investor. PRAISE FOR THE INTELLIGENT OPTION INVESTOR: "The Intelligent Option Investor reflects Erik's keen understanding of how companies create value for their owners, which is essential to successful option investing. In addition to showcasing Erik's expertise in developing option investment strategies based on fundamental security analysis and a long-term time horizon, this book delivers the information in a way that’s accessible to individual investors, offering them the resources to use options to help them meet their financial goals." -- JOE MANSUETO, founder, chairman, and CEO, Morningstar, Inc. "Erik knows--and lays out here--that to use options successfully, you need to understand the underlying stock and its valuation first. This is one of few books onoptions that teaches this fruitful, combined approach. And that's why it works." -- JEFF FISCHER, advisor, Motley Fool Options

Ever since her former boss introduced her to her handsome, brilliant husband-to-be, Susan Shapiro has been on a marital mission. So far, she’s fixed up twelve marriages and countless couples. Unlike all those “relationship experts” who are incapable of having a real relationship, or who took off their first ring to pledge their vows to their second or third life partner, Shapiro has witnessed—and scored—on all sides of the setup spectrum. She learned to charm her own blind dates, walk down the aisle with her personal Mr. Perfect, keep her first and only marriage rapturous, and expertly set up dozens of other duets. Now the author of the acclaimed memoirs Lighting Up and Five Men Who Broke My Heart, and a self-proclaimed “diehard romantic optimist,” shares her honest, provocative, and sometimes downright subversive slant on every stage of dating, sex, and domestic relations. She’ll show you how to: • Fix yourself up first so you’re really ready to be fixed up fabulously • Recognize raw marriage material and not let a good one get away • Break through your fears, insecurities, and dating defenses to land true love • Find love mentors who will set you up and help you close the deal • Decide which love and marriage myths to lose if you want to win • Keep fixing up your relationship so it stays warm and loving forever

How the obsession with quantifying human performance threatens business, medicine, education, government—and the quality of our lives Today, organizations of all kinds are ruled by the belief that the path to success is quantifying human performance, publicizing the results, and dividing up the rewards based on the numbers. But in our zeal to instill the evaluation process with scientific rigor, we've gone from measuring performance to fixating on measuring itself—and this tyranny of metrics now threatens the quality of our organizations and lives. In this brief, accessible, and powerful book, Jerry Muller uncovers the damage metrics are causing and shows how we can begin to fix the problem. Filled with examples from business, medicine, education, government, and other fields, the book explains why paying for measured performance doesn't work, why surgical scorecards may increase deaths, and much more. But Muller also shows that, when used as a complement to judgment based on personal experience, metrics can be beneficial, and he includes an invaluable checklist of when and how to use them. The result is an essential corrective to a harmful trend that increasingly affects us all.