ABSTRACT
Joan of Arc first got attention because it was unusual to be a woman warrior; but she was also good at recognizing who she could influence. She was capable of leading people in a contagious emotion: surprisingly for us moderns (but not for medieval people), she was particularly effective by weeping in church, setting off everyone else into an orgy of collective weeping. Nor is she a violent leader; she carries the banner at the head of the troops, right up to the enemy walls, and her followers stream after her, fighting to protect her because she has become the emblem of their better selves. She has turned them from a collection of demoralized mercenaries into a patriotic army fighting for France.
Cleopatra, contrary to popular belief, was not a particularly beautiful woman, but she was very good at dramatizing herself. She was very intelligent at sizing people up and playing to their moods, at the same time strategizing for her political advantage. She managed to manipulate some of the most important people of ancient history—Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, and Octavian (Augustus Caesar). The power of sex turns out to be a disguised version of the skills of personal domination.
Jiang Qing, better known as Madame Mao, was the leader of the Red Guards movement in late 1960s China. She used the prestige of her husband’s name, but she launched the movement with her own allies, and led it in increasingly ferocious directions. Everyone was afraid of her, even the top officials in the Communist Party. But the Red Guards lived on a high emotional pitch, endlessly seeking out shirkers to attack, and this led them to attack each other, either for being too militant or not militant enough. This political civil war eventually paralyzed Chinese society, until Mao himself pulled the plug and exiled the young Red Guards to the remote countryside. Madame Mao displays how charisma can spin off from being connected with someone else with charisma; and the kind of charisma that blends contagious enthusiasm and fear.
