Published in 1947, Gamesmanship was the first of Stephen
Potter's -manship books. With it, Potter brought the word "gamesmanship"
into the language in its present day meaning - the art of winning games
without actually cheating.
Gamesmanship exposes the true motives and techniques of apparently
sporting games players. It contains hints for gaining psychological
advantage over opponents, before, during and after a game, no matter who
actually wins.
Gamesmanship reveals a number of specific "ploys" (i.e.
gambits) for a variety of sports, including golf, snooker, squash,
tennis, bridge, poker, chess, darts and cricket.
Through Gamesmanship, Stephen Potter introduced into the English
language the facetious use of the -manship suffix. This spawned a number
of other -manship words, such as brinkmanship (first coined by Adlai
Stevenson at the height of the Cold War).
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Currently out of print in the UK, Gamesmanship has recently been
published in the United States, by Moyer Bell in 1998.
Click
here to purchase this book from Amazon.co.uk. |
Stephen Potter went on expand the concept of Gamesmanship into the
wider social realm with his next book, Lifemanship, published in
1950.
Lifemanship dealt with how to get ahead in both business and social
life (even extended to successful wooing).
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One-upmanship, published in 1952, built on the themes
introduced in Gamesmanship and Lifemanship.
It introduced the condition of being "one-up" and the word "one-upmanship"
into the English language.
The tongue-in-cheek game of staying one-up on one's friends and
colleagues, through scoring points at their cost, became widespread.
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Currently out of print in the UK, One-upmanship has
recently been published in the United States.
Click
here to buy this book from Amazon.co.uk. |
Stephen Potter wrote a number of subsequent volumes, exploring
these themes further, including Supermanship (published in 1958)
and Golfmanship.
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A movie, School for Scoundrels, was released in the 1950s
based on the -manship books. It starred Terry Thomas as the cad who
frustrates Ian Carmichael (the hero) before he resorts to being taught
one-upmanship by Stephen Potter, played by Alastair Sim.
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Click
here to buy the video of this movie from Amazon.co.uk |
A short TV series, One-upmanship, was produced by the BBC
in the late 1970s, starring Richard Briers.
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