Encyclopedia Idiotica

Stephen Weir’s Encyclopedia Idiotica: History's Worst Decisions and the People Who Made Them is all right. It’s a light, breezy account of 50 historical events that struck the author as particularly idiotic. The sections about historical periods I was more familiar with contained a few inaccuracies and oversimplifications. Also, some of the perceived idiocies were plausible mistakes (the Mariner I spacecraft failing because of a missing hyphen in its software). Others, such as the explosion at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, are better characterized as greed or indifference than idiocy. Still, it’s entertaining to learn more about the subjects I knew little about, such as Custer’s Last Stand or Florence Nightingale.