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47 Works 615 Members 14 Reviews

About the Author

Richard Stengel is an American editor. He is Time magazine's 16th managing editor. Stengel is a native of New York. He graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University in 1977. After college, he was a Rhodes Scholar and studied English and history at Christ Church, Oxford. He also authored show more several books including January Sun: One Day, Three Lives, A South African Town and You're too Kind: A Brief History of Flattery. In 1993 he collaborated with Nelson Mandela on Mandela's bestselling autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom. He became a senior advisor and chief speechwriter for Bill Bradley, who ran for the Democratic nomination for the 2000 presidential election. He is married to Mary Pfaff, who is originally from South Africa. They have two sons. (Bowker Author Biography) show less

Includes the name: STENGEL RICHARD

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Works by Richard Stengel

January Sun (1990) 18 copies
Time Magazine 2011.12.26 (2011) 4 copies
Time Magazine 2011.12.19 (2011) 4 copies
Time Magazine 2012.02.27 (2012) 3 copies
Time Magazine 2012.03.12 (2012) 2 copies
Time Magazine 2012.01.09 (2012) 2 copies

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An inspiring read. The book presents a much more complex man than we might imagine when we see his glowing countenance in photos and on newsreels. He has worked hard to become the person he is, and has used his life experiences to learn from each encounter and challenge. I walked away from the book feeling like Mandela is a pristine mix of the Dalai Lama and Malcolm X - he believes in progress through peaceful means, but he knows that for change to occur, at times one must be boldly assertive.

These fifteen lessons aren't revolutionary - "Courage is not the absence of fear...", "Lead from the Back", etc. - but to have them applied to specific experiences in one man's life - the life of a man who has endured much and come out the other side with such grace - well, it made me admire Mandela all the more, and certainly, his approach to life is one worthy of following in our day to day opportunities.

Richard Stengel spent many months with Mr. Mandela, and that allows him to give us a look a typical outsider wouldn't have had. The stories he shares aren't just of Mandela's prison stint or his leadership in South Africa, they are also about how he interacts with his own children, with those who live nearby, and what he is thinking in his day to day life. Those are the moments that a typical biographer/armchair philosopher could not have captured.

This is not a biography, but a series of glimpses at a man and his personal philosophy on how to make the world a better place, and live a life that matters. I'll take that over a biography any day.
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TommyHousworth | 4 other reviews | Feb 5, 2022 |
Author, Richard Stengel, former editor of Time magazine was Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs from 2013 to 2016 during the Obama administration while John Kerry was Secretary of State.
 
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MrDickie | 3 other reviews | Jan 18, 2020 |
Richard Stengel was the editor of Time magazine until he was tapped to work at the State Department in the Obama administration as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. The job description was broad (essentially representing the United States to the rest of the world as, essentially, a marketer), but he quickly settled his focus on counter-messaging against 2 growing sources of disinformation: ISIS and Russia. The book is divided into 3 major sections. The first points to the inadequacies of the State Department in such areas as technology and sheer bureaucracy (affecting an ability to get anything done). The second section details the work he did over the 3 years he held that position until the election of Trump. The third section is his prescription for steps we can take to level the playing field.

I have a few observations. First, it was incredibly discouraging to read about the dysfunction in the State Department: the endless meetings with no actionable items at the end, a culture encouraging people to "play it safe" and not make new suggestions, and a hierarchical system that made it near to impossible to move nimbly forward with any agenda.

Second, I found myself lost often throughout the middle section of the book, as Stengel dealt with so many entities within government (I had to bookmark the glossary of acronyms of gov't agencies at the front of the book, as I referred to it so often). Most of the time he was trying to promote the same ideas to various groups, without much success. No wonder he had a hard time recruiting people to work for CSCC (The Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications), his baby. On the other hand, as much as a slog this section was, it did teach me about the day-to-day workings of a government department, and I believe I now have a much clearer picture of what we are attempting to do to combat disinformation. I also found the section on modern Russian warfare quite interesting (start with the distribution of disinformation to a country, send disguised military in to take over, and shut down traditional communications).

For me, the reward of the book was the final section on actionable items. A few of his suggestions: Develop hate speech statues; stricter regulation of social media to incentivize the creation of fact-based content and disincentivize the creation of disinformation (Section 230 of Communications Decency Act needs to be addressed); a digital bill of rights (platforms need consent to sell or share user information); redo search engine algorithms to discourage popularity as the key factor in a search; teach media literacy at secondary schools; and finally, have traditional media develop transparent ways of writing a story so we the consumer can check out original source material.

There is a lot of worth in this book. It's not a beach read, but quite necessary, I believe, in these times of ours.
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peggybr | 3 other reviews | Jan 2, 2020 |

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