Our history books tell marvelous success, triumphs, and remarkable exploits. Yet, main historical events do not recap to a succession of strokes of genius! Looking at this closely, even great men sometimes make stupid decisions and mistakes at the worst moment!

Luc Mary decided to leaf through the not so glorious pages of annals full of failures and gaffes. Though they are generals, tsars, emperors, kings or queens, presidents or ministers… the characters of power are capable of bad actions! Irrational choices or blunders finally pave the way for great events: the fiasco of the battles of Crecy and Agincourt, the unimaginable Berlin wall, the Russian revolution, the disastrous Saint-Barthelemy’s Day massacre, the campaign of Waterloo, Napoléon III’s campaign in Mexico, the establishment of the never-ending cold war, Charles de Gaulle’s gaffes, or the recent war in Ukraine.

Strategic mistakes, diplomatic slight and useless massacres succeed each other through these pages. Luc Mary decrypts and analyzes with delicacy these absurd decisions which, despite everything, take part in the construction of History.