Overview

Full Product Details

9781639730681

Table of Contents

Reviews

How to Be a Dictator takes off from a conviction, no doubt born of [Dikoetter's] Mao studies, that a tragic amnesia about what ideologues in power are like has taken hold of too many minds amid the current 'crisis of liberalism.' And so he attempts a sort of anatomy of authoritarianism, large and small, from Mao to Papa Doc Duvalier. Each dictator's life is offered with neat, mordant compression. Dikoetter's originality is that he counts crimes against civilization alongside crimes against humanity. --The New Yorker Historically detailed and compelling in its chronicling of how dictators set about organizing an entire society around their own glorification and power. --Tablet Magazine Monuments crumble and statues fall, but How to Be a Dictator succeeds in identifying how and why linguistic domination has lasting power. --Paste

Author Information

Frank Dik�tter is Chair Professor of Humanities at the University of Hong Kong and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. His books have changed the way historians view China, from the classic The Discourse of Race in Modern China to his award-winning People's Trilogy documenting the lives of ordinary people under Mao. He lives in Hong Kong.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available