Richard Stengel: You're too kind

By MARGIE THOMSON

Flattery will get you nowhere, we like to say. Not true. As Stengel shows in his witty, unorthodox romp through history, flattery can be greatly self-advancing, even in our modern age of irony.

It can be win-win: even if the person you are flattering doesn't believe a word of it, they will nevertheless be flattered that you think them worthy of flattery; and perhaps look favourably upon you.

While Stengel's style is unfailingly entertaining, his depth and scope are also considerable. Flattery, he says, is not immutable: "It has changed as humankind itself has changed. In telling this history of flattery, I will also be charting the course of the slow transformation from a world of character to one of personality, the transformation over the centuries from a world where much was assumed and little was in doubt to one where little is assumed and much is in doubt; a world where truth and morality seemed clear, to one where they are fuzzy and relative."

Pocket Books

$27.95