How to Be a Dictator
The Cult of Personality in the Twentieth Century
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- $25.99
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- $25.99
Publisher Description
From the Samuel Johnson Prize-winning author of China After Mao, a sweeping and timely study of twentieth-century dictators and the development of the modern cult of personality.
No dictator can rule through fear and violence alone. Naked power can be grabbed and held temporarily, but it never suffices in the long term. In the twentieth century, as new technologies allowed leaders to place their image and voice directly into their citizens' homes, a new phenomenon appeared where dictators exploited the cult of personality to achieve the illusion of popular approval without ever having to resort to elections.
In How to Be a Dictator, Frank Dikötter examines the cults and propaganda surrounding twentieth-century dictators, from Hitler and Stalin to Mao Zedong and Kim Il Sung. These men were the founders of modern dictatorships, and they learned from each other and from history to build their regimes and maintain their public images. Their dictatorships, in turn, have influenced leaders in the twenty-first century, including Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orbán, and Xi Jinping.
Using a breadth of archival research and his characteristic in-depth analysis, Dikötter offers a stunning portrait of dictatorship, a guide to the cult of personality, and a map for exposing the lies dictators tell to build and maintain their regimes.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Dik tter (The Cultural Revolution), a University of Hong Kong humanities professor, explores modern dictators and their "illusion of popular support" in this richly detailed yet disappointing study. Focusing on eight authoritarian regimes, including Italy under Benito Mussolini, China under Mao Zedong, Russia under Joseph Stalin, and Haiti under Fran ois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, Dik tter describes massive parades, weekly radio broadcasts, and marathon speeches before enraptured crowds. The purpose of these "cults of personality," he writes, was "not to convince or persuade," but rather to "enforce obedience": if no one can tell who's a true believer and who's lying, everyone has to self-censor. Dik tter reveals that Mussolini shaped his public image by leaving his office lights on at night (to prove that he never slept), and cites American journalist Edgar Snow's 1937 bestseller Red Star over China as an example of how dictators manipulate foreigners to burnish their international reputations. (Mao Zedong vetted Snow and reviewed the book's every detail.) But these rulers' true power, Dik tter contends, is fear without it, there is no cult. However, he fails to sufficiently analyze the mechanisms of fear and how they fit with the careful cultivation of these leaders' public images. Such oversights mar what might have been a fascinating work.
