An alliance is an agreement or friendship between two or more parties, made in order to advance common goals and to secure common interests.

See also military alliance and business alliance.

Examples of alliances[link]

International relations[link]

In international relations, the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance, signed in 1373 between the Kingdom of England (succeeded by the United Kingdom) and Portugal, is the oldest alliance in the world which is still in force.

• Holy Alliance, coalition of Russia, Austria and Prussia created in 1815
• Quadruple Alliance
• Triple Alliance (disambiguation)
• North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a military alliance established by the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty

Political organizations[link]

• Alberta Alliance Party, a small right-wing political party in Alberta, Canada that existed from 2002 until merging to form the Wildrose Alliance Party in 2008 (see below)
• Social Democratic Alliance, political party in Iceland
• Alliance (New Zealand), left-wing political party in New Zealand
• Alliance 90, an alliance of three opposition groups in East Germany
• Alliance for Chile, a political coalition that includes Chiles two rightwing parties RN and UDI
• Alliance (Sweden), an electoral and governing (since September 2006) political coalition between the Moderate Party, Centre Party, Liberal People's Party and Christian Democrats
• Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, political party operating in Northern Ireland
• Canadian Alliance, Canadian right-of-centre conservative political party that existed from 2000 to 2003
• Fijian Alliance, a former political party in Fiji
• International Alliance of Socialist Democracy, an organization founded by Mikhail Bakunin
• Melanesian Alliance Party, a political party in Papua New Guinea
• People's Alliance for Democracy, a long-term protest movement in Thailand which is opposed to former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his supporters
• ProLife Alliance, a political party in the United Kingdom
• SDP-Liberal Alliance, electoral alliance of the Social Democratic Party and the Liberal Party in the United Kingdom that operated from 1981 to 1988
• The Alliance Party (Malaya), the predecessor of the Barisan Nasional political coalition in Malaysia
• The Alliance (Hong Kong), political group in Hong Kong
• Tongmenghui (or "Revolutionary Alliance"), a Chinese underground resistance movement which operated in Japan from 1905 to 1950
• United Iraqi Alliance, a political coalition in Iraq
• United People Alliance, electoral and political coalition between the Portuguese Communist Party or PCP and the Portuguese Democratic Movement or MDP
• National Alliance (disambiguation), several political parties
• National Democratic Alliance (disambiguation), several political parties
• New Alliance Party (disambiguation), several political parties
• Wildrose Alliance Party, a small right-wing political party in Alberta, Canada
• Liberal Alliance (disambiguation), several political parties
• The Alliance short for Republican, Ecologist and Social Alliance (ARES) is a federation of centrist political parties in France.

Television, film, and comic books[link]

• The Alliance, a group of aliens and monsters in the Doctor Who episode 'The Pandorica Opens'
• Alliance of Twelve from the Alias TV series
• Alliance (DC Comics), an organization of alien freedom fighters from the pages of DC Comics
• Anglo-Sino Alliance, powerful government and law-enforcement organization that controls a large sector of colonized "core planets" in the Firefly television series
• Earth Alliance (Babylon 5), fictional alliance of the countries of Earth in the television series Babylon 5
• Ferengi Alliance, fictional extraterrestrial race from the Star Trek universe
• Rebel Alliance, interstellar political resistance force formed in direct military opposition to the Galactic Empire in the fictional Star Wars universe
• The Alliance (The Office episode), an episode of the television series The Office
• The Alliance (professional wrestling), professional wrestling faction which ostensibly consisted of World Championship Wrestling and Extreme Championship Wrestling
• Alliance to End Hulkamania, professional wrestling stable in World Championship Wrestling
• Alliance Films, motion picture distribution/production company, which serves Canada, the United Kingdom, and Spain.

Video games[link]

• The Alliance, a military, cultural, and economic alliance between various races in the Warcraft series of video games
• The Alliance of Order in Warhammer, an alliance of Humans, Elves and Dwarves to counter the Forces of Destruction
• Systems Alliance, the representative body of humanity in the Mass Effect series
• In Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, the titular Alliance refers to a coalition of heroes that normally work independently of one another, or in separate units.

Business[link]

• Airline alliance, an agreement between two or more airlines to cooperate on a substantial level. The three largest passenger alliances are the Star Alliance, SkyTeam and Oneworld.

Literature[link]

• Burk, Kathleen and Melvyn Stokes (eds.): The United States and the European Alliance since 1945 (Oxford: Berg, 1999).
• Heuser, Beatrice, "Alliances Bedevilled by History: Franks, Germanics and Anglo-Saxons in the Cold War", in Luciano Tosi (ed): Europe, its Borders and the Others (Naples: Edizione Scientifiche Italiane, 2000), pp.313-349.
• Hunt, Peter: War, Peace, and Alliance in Demostenes' Athens (Cambridge University Press, 2010)
• O'Neill, Robert, Alliances and International Order (1988)
• Phillips, Charles and Alan Axelrod (ed), Encyclopedia of historical treaties and alliances. Vol. 1, From ancient times to World War I (Chicago & London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2001)
• Strategies Alliances and Military Power: Changing Roles". With contributions by the Faculty and Staff of the Strategic Studies Institute at the United States Army War College, Carlislse Barracks, Pennsylvania, USA (Leyden: Sijthoff, 1977)
• Weitsman, Patricia A., Dangerous Alliances: Proponents of Peace, Weapons of War (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004)

Napoleon Hill
Portrait of a young Napoleon Hill
Born	(1883-10-26)October 26, 1883 Pound, Virginia
Died	November 8, 1970(1970-11-08) (aged 87)
Occupation	author, journalist, attorney, lecturer
Nationality	United States
Period	1928–1970
Genres	non-fiction, how-to, treatise
Subjects	personal development, self-help, motivation, finance, investment
Literary movement	personal development, self-help
Notable work(s)	Think and Grow Rich The Law of Success Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude
Influences Andrew Carnegie, W. Clement Stone, Thomas Edison, John D. Rockefeller
Influenced W. Clement Stone Og Mandino
Signature
The Napoleon Hill Foundation naphill.org the napoleon hill foundation
Literature portal

Napoleon Hill (October 26, 1883 – November 8, 1970) was an American author who was one of the earliest producers of the modern genre of personal-success literature. He is widely considered to be one of the great writers on success.^[1] His most famous work, Think and Grow Rich (1937), is one of the best-selling books of all time (at the time of Hill's death in 1970, Think and Grow Rich had sold 20 million copies).^[2] Hill's works examined the power of personal beliefs, and the role they play in personal success. He became an advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1933 to 1936. "What the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve" is one of Hill's hallmark expressions.^[3][4] How achievement actually occurs, and a formula for it that puts success in reach of the average person, were the focal points of Hill's books.

Life and works[link]

According to his official biographer, Tom Butler-Bowdon, Napoleon Hill was born in a one-room cabin near the Appalachian town of Pound, in Southwest Virginia.^[5] Hill's mother died when he was eight years old, and his father remarried two years later. At the age of 13, Hill began writing as a "mountain reporter" for small-town newspapers in the area of Wise County, Virginia. He later used his earnings as a reporter to enter law school, but soon he had to withdraw for financial reasons.^[6]

Influence of Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919)[link]

Andrew Carnegie

Hill considered the turning point in his life to have occurred in the year 1908 with his assignment, as part of a series of articles about famous and successful men, to interview the industrialist Andrew Carnegie. At the time, Carnegie was one of the most powerful men in the world. Hill discovered that Carnegie believed that the process of success could be outlined in a simple formula that anyone would be able to understand and achieve. Impressed with Hill, Carnegie asked him if he was up to the task of putting together this information, to interview or analyze over 500 successful men and women, many of them millionaires, in order to discover and publish this formula for success.^[7]

As part of his research, Hill interviewed many of the most famous people of the time, including Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, George Eastman, Henry Ford, Elmer Gates, John D. Rockefeller, Sr., Charles M. Schwab, F.W. Woolworth, William Wrigley Jr., John Wanamaker, William Jennings Bryan, Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft and Jennings Randolph. Hill was also an advisor to two presidents of the United States of America, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.^[8]

The Philosophy of Achievement[link]

Napoleon Hill holding his book Think and Grow Rich

As a result of Hill's studies via Carnegie's introductions, the Philosophy of Achievement was offered as a formula for rags-to-riches success by Hill and Carnegie, published initially in 1925 as a multi-volume study course called The Law of Success, later re-released in 1928 in an abridged version under the same title. The Achievement formula was detailed further and published in home-study courses, including the seventeen-volume "Mental Dynamite" series until 1941.

Hill later called his personal success teachings "The Philosophy of Achievement", and he considered freedom, democracy, capitalism, and harmony to be important contributing elements to this philosophy. Hill claimed throughout his writings that without these foundations upon which to build, successful personal achievements were not possible. He contrasted his philosophy with others' and thought that the Achievement Philosophy was superior. He felt that it was responsible for the success Americans enjoyed for the better part of two centuries. Negative emotions such as fear, selfishness, etc., had no part to play in his philosophy. Hill considered those emotions to be the source of failure for unsuccessful people.^[9]

The secret of achievement was tantalizingly offered to readers of Think and Grow Rich, but Hill felt readers would benefit most if they discovered it for themselves. Although most readers feel that he never explicitly identified this secret, he offers these words about 20 pages into the book: If you truly desire money so keenly that your desire is an obsession, you will have no difficulty in convincing yourself that you will acquire it. The object is to want money, and to be so determined to have it that you convince yourself that you will have it. . . You may as well know, right here, that you can never have riches in great quantities unless you work yourself into a white heat of desire for money, and actually believe you will possess it.

He presented the idea of a "Definite Major Purpose" as a challenge to his readers in order to make them ask themselves, "In what do I truly believe?" According to Hill, 98% of people had few or no firm beliefs, and this alone put true success firmly out of their reach.^[10]

One of Hill's most moving stories was about his own son, Blair. He tells how his son was an inspiration to him, because although Blair was born without ears, without any normal hearing organs at all, even though his doctor told Hill that his son would neither be able to hear nor speak, Blair grew up to be able to hear and speak almost normally. Hill tells how his son, in his last year of college, picked up the manuscript of chapter two of Think and Grow Rich, discovered Hill's secret for himself and went on to be an inspiration for hundreds and thousands of people who could not hear or speak.^[11]

From 1952 to 1962, Hill taught his Philosophy of Personal Achievement – Lectures on "Science of Success" in association with W. Clement Stone.^[12] In 1960, Hill and Stone co-authored the book, Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude. Norman Vincent Peale stated "These two men [Hill and Stone] have the rare gift of inspiring and helping people...In fact, I owe them both a personal debt of gratitude for the helpful guidance I have received from their writings." ^[13]

Think and Grow Rich remains the top seller of Napoleon Hill's books – a perennial best-seller after 70 years (Business Week Magazine's Best-Seller List ranked Think and Grow Rich as the sixth best-selling paperback business book 70 years after it was first published).^[14] Think and Grow Rich is listed in John C. Maxwell's A Lifetime "Must Read" Books List. ^[15]

Hill's numerous books have sold millions of copies, showing that the secret of achievement is still highly sought-after by many today. Hill dealt with many controversial subjects through his writings including racism, slavery, oppression, failure, revolution, war and poverty. Persevering and then succeeding in spite of these obstacles using the Philosophy of Achievement, Hill stated, was the responsibility of every human.^[10]

Today's philosophy-of-success teachers still use the research formulas taught by Hill to expand their students' knowledge of personal development.^[15]

Bibliography[link]

• The Law of Success (1928)
• The Magic Ladder To Success (1930)
• Think and Grow Rich (1937)
• How to Sell Your Way through Life (1939)
• Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude (1960)
• You Can Work Your Own Miracles (1971)
• Napoleon Hill's Keys to Success: The 17 Principles of Personal Achievement
• Grow Rich!: With Peace of Mind
• The Master-Key to Riches
• Succeed and Grow Rich Through Persuasion
• Outwitting the Devil (2011) ISBN 978-1-4027-8453-8

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Napoleon Hill

• Napoleon Hill Quotes
• Article on Hill's life from Success magazine
• Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) – Find A Grave Memorial