Summary: Maxwell E-Book

BusinessNews Publishing

• Herausgeber: Business Book Summaries
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 39

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

The must-read summary of Peter Thompson and Anthony Delano's book: "Maxwell: A Portrait of Power".

This complete summary of the ideas from Peter Thompson and Anthony Delano's book "Maxwell: A Portrait of Power" tells the story of Robert Maxwell, one of the most controversial publishing tycoons of our time. This biography includes entertaining anecdotes and the authors explore the many contradictions of his life. This summary provides an insight into Maxwell's life and how he managed to reach the top through acts of fraud and deception.

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To learn more, read "Maxwell" and discover the riveting tale of deceit that lies behind the success of Robert Maxwell.

Leseprobe

Book Presentation: Maxwellby Peter Thompson and Anthony Delano

Important Note About This Ebook

Summary of Maxwell(Peter Thompson and Anthony Delano)

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Book Presentation: Maxwellby Peter Thompson and Anthony Delano

Important Note About This Ebook

This is a summary and not a critique or a review of the book. It does not offer judgment or opinion on the content of the book. This summary may not be organized chapter-wise but is an overview of the main ideas, viewpoints and arguments from the book as a whole. This means that the organization of this summary is not a representation of the book.

Summary of Maxwell(Peter Thompson and Anthony Delano)

Part 1

Robert Maxwell changed his name several times. He was born as Jan Lodvik on 10 June 1923 in Slatina-Selo, a small province in Czechoslovakia. His family were extremely poor, with all eight of them living in a single-room hotel which froze in the severe European winters. There were barely enough hand-me-down clothes to go around and no shoes for the younger children - they simply went barefoot or wrapped their feet in rags. His family were Jewish, and Maxwell learned the ancient Hebrew prayers in Yiddish.

Maxwell got his first pair of shoes at the age of eight, and was able to go to the primitive local school where lessons were given in Czech and Russian. He soon discovered that he had been gifted with a photographic memory - anything he read or heard he soaked up so instantly and so completely that he could repeat it verbatim. He could absorb information at an incredible rate. He also found he was gifted with languages, and could pick up new languages quickly if not entirely accurately.

It is also known that most of Maxwell’s early childhood consisted of gaining a street education. After three years of schooling (at age 11), he was unable to enroll in a higher grade of school because his clothing was too shabby. Instead, he learned from watching the small town merchants, and soon learned one of the immortal truths of hustling; an argument is not lost simply because it is ended, a bargain can always be remade, people buy what you say not what you deliver and the less you have to sell, the louder you have to shout.

While Maxwell was growing up, political changes that would reshape the face of Europe were taking place all around him. The Czech economy had based its economic hopes on Germany and Austria, but the worldwide depression combined with astronomical inflation within those countries to breed the Nazi movement. Maxwell’s family sent him away to relatives in Slovakia where it was hoped he would be able to find work. (Maxwell’s father was unemployed for almost all of his adult life).

Maxwell turned 16 in June 1939, about two months before Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia. He joined the underground, and started out towards Poland. Instead, he was arrested in Hungary as a spy and tortured and sentenced to death. When the French embassy took an interest in the treatment of young Czechs (Maxwell was still only 17 years old), he was placed under a light guard from which he was able to escape. Along with hundreds of other Czechs, he contacted the underground again and made his way through Yugoslavia, Greece and Bulgaria to Turkey and on to Syria, then a French protectorate. He never saw his parents or three of his sisters ever again, and cannot trace what happened to them, although there is some suggestion they may have ended up at Auschwitz.

All Czechs who made it to Syria were invited to join the free army of the Czechoslovak Republic to fight against the Nazi war machine that had taken over their country. Thus, in early 1940, Robert Maxwell and about 2,500 other Czechs were shipped from Syria to Agde, a French town on the south-west Mediterranean Coast.

The Czechs were an ill-matched assembly. In addition to a large number of professional soldiers, the ranks included doctors, lawyers and teachers. By one estimation, in one of the three divisions, one man in eight was a lawyer. Maxwell was still too young to officially join the army - he was not yet 18 years old - so he was part of the auxiliary to the first Czech Division, an unruly group of youth who ran errands for the real soldiers.