Peter's People and Their Marvelous Ideas

by Laurence J. Peter

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0505517515
• ISBN13: 9780505517517
• Release Date: January 1981
• Publisher: Tower & Leisure Sales Co
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A list of "laws" and principles that have a satirical bite

Dr. Laurence J. Peter is best known for his statement of the Peter Principle, "People tend to rise to the level of their incompetence." In this book, he writes about people who have been instrumental in generating some of the most significant ideas of history. Some of the people are long since dead, so he simulates an interview with them by using excerpts from their writing or speeches. This is very well done and occasionally quite humorous. He "interviews" Oscar Wilde, Elbert Hubbard, Mark Twain, Benjamin Franklin, Adlai Stevenson and Will Rogers. He also profiles other people such as Johnny Carson, Richard Nixon, George Carlin and Thomas Crapper. I found his examination of P.T. Barnum to be the most interesting. He argues that Barnum's contribution was to make fun and laughter a way of American life. While I don't necessarily agree with that argument, it was well made and I took it seriously. In the remainder of the book, Peter gives us a long list of rules and "laws" about the occasional absurdity of life. He lampoons government bureaucracy, the role of women in society and the role of ethnic humor in the assimilation of a group into a society. This is a funny book, reading the lists of the "laws" it was hard not to laugh and groan at the same time. The best satire has a serious bite to it and that principle applies to the rules that Peter puts forward in this book.