Greene argues that seduction is the ultimate form of power, historically giving women a psychological weapon against men's physical dominance.

Cleopatra arrives before Julius Caesar rolled inside a rug, immediately enchanting him and beginning her calculated Siren seduction.

The Duke de Richelieu breaks through a wall into a shared cupboard to secretly continue his affair with Mademoiselle de Valois.

Casanova meets a woman, identifies her deepest unspoken needs, and fulfills them entirely, defining the Ideal Lover's selfless approach.

Jeanne Poisson becomes Louis XV's mistress and retains his interest by continually reinventing herself to prevent boredom.

Valentino blends feminine grace and movement with a masculine image, creating the Dandy's seductive appeal through internal contradiction.

Josephine Bonaparte charms Napoleon by marrying him and then refusing to visit during wartime, embodying the Coquette's power of withdrawal.

Disraeli wins over Queen Victoria by appealing to her confidence and femininity rather than arguing policy, demonstrating the Charmer's technique.

Joan of Arc convinces the Dauphin to lead a French army by claiming divine visions and projecting absolute spiritual confidence.

Marlene Dietrich becomes an object of projected fantasy because her blank, unreadable presence lets audiences substitute their own desires onto her.

Octavius defeats Cleopatra's seductive power entirely by remaining cold and emotionally unresponsive, demonstrating how Anti-Seducers can neutralize Sirens.

Valmont selects the innocent but curious Présidente de Tourvel as his target precisely because her strong resistance makes her ideal prey.

Shahrazad keeps King Shahriyar from executing her each night by ending stories mid-climax, using narrative suspense as a survival strategy.

Bernard Bouriscout discovers that Shi Pei Pu, believed to be a woman and mother of his child, is actually a man.

Greene argues the bold physical move releases built-up seductive tension and licenses the interest to abandon repression and surrender.

Greene opens the book by arguing that seduction is the ultimate psychological weapon, historically giving women power over men through manipulation rather than force. He then introduces the major seducer types—Siren, Rake, Ideal Lover, Dandy, Coquette, Charmer, Charismatic, and Star—through their most iconic illustrative examples from history and fiction. The Anti-Seducer is revealed as the countertype who lacks psychological awareness, demonstrated most sharply when Octavius neutralizes Cleopatra's Siren power through pure emotional detachment. In the book's second half, Greene teaches the practical mechanics of the seductive process, from selecting the right target to sustaining suspense and constructing perfect illusions. The revelation that Shi Pei Pu is biologically male despite years of performed femininity shows how completely a sustained fantasy can override a person's grasp of reality. The book culminates in the bold move, which Greene frames as the necessary physical release of all accumulated seductive tension.

The core seducer types and defining techniques that build the art of seduction.

Marilyn Monroe develops her seductive identity by recognizing that her body, walk, and voice together create a paternal feeling in men.

D'Annunzio seduces women including Eleanor Duse primarily through voice and language, embodying the Demonic Rake's psychological rather than physical power.

Lou von Salomé attracts Nietzsche, Rilke, and Freud while rejecting their marriage proposals, defining the Masculine Dandy's power of detachment.

Cora Pearl's wildness, independence, and disregard for social decorum attract wealthy Parisian men, demonstrating the Natural seducer's uninhibited appeal.

Andy Warhol attends his first art show as a Cold Coquette, using emotional distance to make critics and party guests seek his approval.

Zhou Enlai uses charm and strategic empathy to convince Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek to join Communist forces against the Japanese.

Eva Perón connects with the Argentine masses through saintly charity work and emotional speeches, embodying the Drama Saint Charismatic type.

Malcolm X channels the community's oppressed anger through eloquent passionate speeches, demonstrating how the Deliverer Charismatic gains power through shared grievance.

Charles de Gaulle appears on television in his wartime uniform after the Algerian insurrection, using theatrical presence to assert moral authority.

Anne Marie Louis d'Orléans and the Marquis Péguilin meet through repeated staged chance encounters before becoming engaged, illustrating indirect seduction.

D.H. Lawrence seduces Jessie Chambers by pointing out her flaws as a future wife, creating the insecurity he then exploits.

President Sukarno mirrors journalist Cindy Adams's moods, style, and hair color, convincing her to write a flattering autobiography of him.

Empress Dowager Tzu Shi transforms western ambassadors' wives' hostility into admiration through elaborate personalized gifts, banquets, and entertainment.

Barney transforms her home into a chapel-like space and takes Renée Vivien to Sappho's homeland until Vivien begins to see her as Sappho.

Caroline Otero secures a performance contract from theater manager Jurgens using only touch, voice, and body language, never explicit words.

Pool 2 fills in the secondary seducer types that reinforce Greene's framework, from Monroe's Sex Siren to Warhol's Cold Coquette, showing how each type exploits a specific psychological weakness in others. The political Charismatics—Eva Perón, Malcolm X, and Charles de Gaulle—demonstrate how seduction operates at the mass level through emotional appeal, personal sacrifice, and theatrical authority. Key techniques from the book's second half are illustrated through vivid anecdotes, including D.H. Lawrence's deliberate undermining of a friend's self-confidence and President Sukarno's careful mirroring of a journalist's personality and style. Details and environment emerge as critical tools, from Empress Dowager Tzu Shi's lavish gifts reshaping diplomatic opinion to Barney's chapel-like domestic space designed to dissolve a lover's resistance. The pool closes with Caroline Otero's wordless seduction of a theater manager, showing that physical presence alone can be the most powerful instrument in the seducer's arsenal.

Supporting seducer types and secondary techniques illustrated through historical and fictional anecdotes.

Greene reveals in the preface that seduction is fundamentally deception, but insists that people secretly want and welcome being led astray.

Rasputin openly displays both saintly devotion and sinful indulgence before Czar Nicholas's wife Alexandra, seducing her through spiritual contradiction.

Lenin inspires revolutionary devotion by presenting himself as Russia's savior from famine and wartime division, making charisma a form of rescue.

Robespierre is seized by opponents during a speech about the Reign of Terror, illustrating how Charismatics create dangerous enemies through overreach.

Johannes sends Cordelia Wahl letters expressing doubt about their engagement, manipulating her into breaking it off and pursuing him physically instead.

Valmont uses a sad appearance and insists that de Tourvel is the strong one who seduced him, turning manufactured vulnerability into a weapon.

Gregory Potemkin creates an elaborate illusion of prosperity along a travel route to manipulate Emperor Joseph II into signing a war treaty.

Rita Hayworth accepts Prince Aly Khan's marriage proposal after he systematically isolates her from her friends and former life.

Jules de Canouville deepens Pauline Bonaparte's attachment by pulling his own tooth and riding through enemy territory just to reach her.

George Villiers displaces a royal favorite and wins King James I's affection by performing childlike innocence and neediness around the king.

Lord Byron seduces Annabella Milbanke by allowing her knowledge of his incestuous affair with his half-sister to function as a transgressive lure.

Rodolphe Boulanger seduces Emma Bovary by weaving spiritual language and a sense of romantic destiny into their ordinary encounters.

Charles Baudelaire sends Apollonie Sabatier anonymous love letters for years, then rejects her coldly the moment she responds and pursues him.

Lan Ping seduces a soccer player using touch and voice, later applying the same physical techniques to seduce and marry Mao Zedong.

Greene concludes that seduction never truly ends, requiring the seducer to continuously re-enchant their interest or face inevitable disenchantment.

Pool 3 begins with Greene's central philosophical admission—that seduction is deception, yet one that targets secretly crave—establishing the moral paradox that underpins every technique in the book. The Charismatic examples of Rasputin, Lenin, and the executed Robespierre illustrate how spiritual authority can generate and catastrophically destroy power in equal measure. The middle section follows decisive turning points where the seducer's psychological grip tightens irreversibly: Valmont weaponizes his own vulnerability, Potemkin fabricates an entire landscape to manipulate a treaty, and Aly Khan systematically severs Hayworth from every source of support. The deeper techniques—regression, transgression, spiritual lures, and absence—are anchored in moments like Villiers's childlike submission winning royal favor and Byron's use of known incest as a perverse seductive lure. The pool closes with Greene's final instruction that the enchantment must never stop, as disenchantment is the inevitable fate of any seduction left unrenewed.

Key psychological revelations and decisive moments where power decisively shifts between seducer and seduced.