H-Net Review: Jonathan Beard on Overconfidence and War: The Havoc and Glory of Positive Illusions

This sounds like an interesting book--review from H-Net Review: Jonathan Beard on Overconfidence and War: The Havoc and Glory of Positive Illusions:

"[the book] begins with a short examination of optimism's roots in human evolution and psychology. It is both useful and pervasive, Johnson argues. During much of human history, people have been prey, and during the last few thousand years, warfare has been a significant factory in our lives. Optimism and (unwarranted) confidence aid survival under such conditions. Psychological testing has found, over and over, that almost everyone rates themselves as above average, and they underestimate their chances of getting sick or having accidents. Leaders, he suggests, are almost sure to incarnate both optimism and high self-esteem. Confidence combined with faulty information frequently leads to miscalculation."

Beard is a political scientist who reviews leaders' decisions: World War I; the Munich Crisis of 1938; the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962; the choice by five American presidents to continue engagement in Vietnam; and the decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

Certainly we don't like leaders who are pessimistic--remember Jimmy Carter's "malaise" speech? Yet some leaders go far by demonizing their opponennts. Emotions, including optimism, enable us to overcome the inertia to which humanity is subject.