Chapter 4. The Lion and the Mouse: Overconfidence and the American Revolution

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents vii
3. Acknowledgments ix
4. Introduction. Our Gift 1
5. Chapter 1. Adaptive Biases: Making the Right Mistakes in International Politics 12
6. Chapter 2. The Evolution of an Idea: Politics in the Age of Biology 29
7. Chapter 3. Fortune Favors the Bold: The Strategic Advantages of Overconfidence 48
8. Chapter 4. The Lion and the Mouse: Overconfidence and the American Revolution 85
9. Chapter 5. Hedging Bets: The Strategic Advantages of Attribution Error 115
10. Chapter 6. Know Your Enemy: Britain and the Appeasement of Hitler 145
11. Chapter 7. United We Stand: The Strategic Advantages of Group Bias 174
12. Chapter 8. No Mercy: The Pacific Campaign of World War II 209
13. Chapter 9. Overkill: The Limits of Adaptive Biases 242
14. Chapter 10. Guardian Angels: The Strategic Advantages of Cognitive Biases 267
15. Notes 293
16. Index 353
17. A Note on the Type 377