The Complete Upmanship: Including, Gamesmanship, Lifemanship, One-Upmanship, Supermanship

by Stephen Potter

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0030640458
• ISBN13: 9780030640452
• Release Date: January 1971
• Publisher: Holt, Rinehart and Winston
• Length: 349 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.

Customer Reviews

This Book is Definitely One-Up!

This is a work of genius. It deserves to be on everyone's top-ten list. This volume is a collection of all Potter's individual works on the subject of Gamesmanship, One-Upmanship, and Lifemanship. If you can't find this one compendium, go out and beg, borrow, or steal any of the individual books you can lay your hands on. You will laugh uproariously. But you will also learn to recognize the literal, nasty little games people play, and if you are of a mind, you will be instructed in how to play the games yourself. I've always been rather annoyed when I find an entry in a Match Making column from someone looking for a mate who "Doesn't play games." I've never quite known what that means. It seems to be some generalized, rote admonition against people who don't return phone calls, or something like that. But if the games mentioned in singles columns refer to just the plain meat-and-potatoes sort of maneuvers - here with Stephen Potter you will find a voluptuous smorgasbord of suggested games. You will find ploys of breathtaking diversity and subtlety. As Potter introduces his subject, the key to being one-up in any social setting is to break the flow of other people's conversation. Put an end to any social momentum they may be building. Throw them off their game. The classic Potter squelch (one which is also illustrated in the movie based on Potter's writings, School for Scoundrels) involves offsetting any success someone at a party may have had by telling a joke. Say someone just scored a big laugh by telling a joke involving a man with one leg. You laugh heartily right along with the others. Then get up off your chair and limp painfully toward the bathroom, mumbling something about a "danged old piece of shrapnel." All the social credit the joke-teller built in the course of the evening will immediately plummet. He and all his appreciative listeners will be made to feel apologetic and guilty and will be effectively silenced. Not all of Potter's ploys involve directly diminishing someone else though. Some ploys enable you to bolster your own social credit without regard to what others around you are doing. For example, Potter gives a tip on how to be popular with children, an important skill if you are courting a single parent or trying to impress your boss at a party. Potter states that you must talk in a perfectly natural, adult way to the child. Talk to him just as you would talk to one of your golfing partners. You might express concern over your stock portfolio. Confide your fear that pork bellies and crude oil are going down, liable to leave you in a pretty pickle. The toddler may not know what you are saying, but will be fascinated by the strange phrases, and will appreciate your talking to him like an equal. And you will be in like Flynn with the child's parents. One final example of Potter's brilliant social observation - and then you really must read the book yourself. Potter tells how to always appear to be the youngest, "coolest

If you're not one-up, you're one down

Yes, the four greatest humour books ever written. You will come to love/hate Gattling-Fenn, Odoreida, Plaste, Julius Wickens, Sticking, the Lawrenceman, et al, but you won't be able to tear yourself away from them. Take a crash course from Yeovil in the comfort of your own armchair, and then turn yourself loose in any social or competitive setting. Not for the meek, but you'll have the upper hand.

Potter is fantastic

I read this book when I was at college and never forgot it. The great illustrations and tricks are sensational. He understands all essentials in life! In addition to the fim he also acts incredibly well.

Handbooks For Life

These are the four funniest books I have ever read. And yet, the basic concepts and strategies set forth are exactly what's needed to reign supreme in all situations social and competitive. Many times over the years I have employed some variaton of a Potter "opening" or gambit, often with better results than I had even hoped. Just as many times, I've realized (too late), that I have missed a golden opportunity, or worse, have been "one-upped" myself.

It doesn't matter if you win or lose, so long as you win . .

British humor, very, very British. If you *don't* like losing, develop the skills needed so that you always win. In any social situation a definite hierarchy develops. Potter's work can be considered a manual for anyone seeking to become the top dog. This volume contains four books previously published separately: Gamesmanship, Lifemanship, One-upmanship, and Supermanship. Potter's own work in the field of becoming one-up on one's fellow man is supplemented by the researches of others in various fields: the carmanship of Godfrey Plaste; the art of not rock-climbing of G. Odoreida; the clubmanship of Hugo Coating; and the many contributions of Gattling-Fenn. Recommended reading for anyone wishing to make Machiavelli gasp in admiration . . .