Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela, 1994. The memories of the outstanding political leader of our time. A compelling story of Nelson Mandela's life and political struggle.
Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar, Simon Sebag Montefiore, 2003. The biography of a murderous tyrant that shaped yesterdays and today's world. Sebag Montefiore manages to recreate the lethal and intimate atmosphere during Stalin's rein.
What if Nelson Mandela met Stalin? ... this was one of the questions that came to my mind when reading both books in parallel. Would the lethal and intimate atmosphere during Stalin's rein have put such kind of political struggle to a quick and silent end? - Obviously, we are always dealing with other people's reactions as a consequence of different mindsets. Behavior which proved to be successful in one specific environment may have completely failed in another.
Thoughts control behavior. However, the simple becomes difficult when we attempt to break through our own belief systems and deal with the dichotomies of our own internal realities and those of a broader world perspective. Eight key variables that account for most of the variance in any given behaviour were identifed: (1) an individual's behavioral intention, (2) environmental constraints, (3) skill or ability, (4) attitude or anticipated outcomes of a given behaviour, (5) norms, (6) self standards, (7) emotional reaction, and (8) self-efficacy.