"Really good" Elon Musk, CEO, Tesla Motors "An adventure of bucking established practices in pursuit of greatness" T. Randall, Bloomberg Twelve Against the Gods is the story of adventure and interpretation of the full-spectrum of "adventure" types through the lives and life lessons of Alexander the Great to Casanova, Mohammed to Isadora Duncan, Seraphina to Woodrow Wilson. It was originally written under Brit-born, South African William Ryall's nom de plume, William Bolitho, known to his fellow friends as "Bill." These friends included fellow adventurers and writers Ernest Hemingway and Noel Coward. Just a year after achieving enormous recognition with "Twelve Against the Gods," Bolitho died at age 39; ironically from appendicitis (vs. lion or tarmac impact). Many, including Elon Musk, consider it one of the "really good" books. Why? It's entertaining, yes, but it's also instructive to budding iconoclasts that want to glean operative knowledge through reading "the adventure of bucking established practices in pursuit of greatness" (source: T. Randall, Bloomberg) We've taken Bolitho's original text and added new photography, illustrations and graphics, while updating a few (now) archaic words, and cleaning up the original layout to better present Bolitho's original work. A work that is still as relevant today as it was 90 years ago, but better appreciated today through a fresher, more contemporary presentation. There are also a few hidden bonuses in this edition, you'll have to find them yourself. However, none of the original writing was changed (ideas, opinions, phrasing). Note: While we corrected some (minor) grammatical & type-setting errors in the original text, and "translated" some of the language that was outdated, to make the text less confusing (e.g., (e.g. "Mohamet" to "Mohammad"), we've preserved all of Bolitho's more "creative" English (neologisms) to maintain the character and flavor of the original.