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The American taste for prolixity shows in Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership, by Howard Gardner (HarperCollins, £18, ISBN 0 00 255655 3). The dust jacket of this examination of what makes leaders and how they come to lead – depending on having a vision and the skills and technology to communicate it – carries the name of Margaret Thatcher bigger than any other. Included among such as George Marshall and Pope John XIII are Margaret Mead and Robert Oppenheimer. Einstein gets as many passing mentions as Ronald Reagan. Readers will need application.