fdterritory's review against another edition
4.0
A really fascinating and sober (and entertaining) look at the way dictators throughout history have used their writing to do and inspire pretty terrible things... Even though the things they write are almost always trash. A little wordy in places, but really informative and a good review of what actual dictators (and not the imagined ones of social media today) can do to the world.
lokster71's review against another edition
4.0
This is an excellent book about terrible human beings writing terrible books. I've actually read a handful of the books he talks about and have to agree with some of his conclusions. I also like Kalder's dry wit.
Kalder's strongest I think on Lenin, Stalin and the importance of the written word and theory in building a power base in their party & then how that gradually stagnated and helped - indirectly perhaps - to kill the USSR. He also talks about Mao, Mussolini, Hitler and others. Having read Mein Kampf a long time ago when at university I found that chapter particularly interesting.
Definitely worth a read, especially as Kalder gives historical context to both the writers and their writing (and how it was received.)
Kalder's strongest I think on Lenin, Stalin and the importance of the written word and theory in building a power base in their party & then how that gradually stagnated and helped - indirectly perhaps - to kill the USSR. He also talks about Mao, Mussolini, Hitler and others. Having read Mein Kampf a long time ago when at university I found that chapter particularly interesting.
Definitely worth a read, especially as Kalder gives historical context to both the writers and their writing (and how it was received.)
spacestationtrustfund's review against another edition
3.0
So here's an interesting thing: with the advent of ebooks and e-readers, Hitler's Mein Kampf has become a digital bestseller. Is something sinister going on? Well,
One explanation offered for the surge in electronic sales concerns the relative anonymity offered by e-books as compared to their printed counterparts. "These are things that people would be embarrassed to read otherwise," journalist Chris Faraone, who wrote about the trend for Vocativ.com, told ABC News. "Books that people would probably be a bit more embarrassed to read or display or buy in public, they are more than willing to buy on their Kindle, or iPads." Faraone believes the phenomenon is similar to that surrounding erotic novel "Fifty Shades of Grey," which in 2012, became the first to sell more than 1 million copies on Amazon's Kindle e-reader.Similarly, libraries with copies of books such as Mein Kampf find them being frequently read (source: I have worked in a library), and online digital archives such as the Internet Archive, BNF, and Gutenberg have all recorded plentiful downloads of "controversial" books in the public domain (double source: I have also worked with all of those platforms). Personally I think it's little more than an interesting cultural phenomenon.
readrabbitwrite's review against another edition
2.0
I have mixed feelings about this book, which is annoying, because I really wanted to love it. I guess I'll paraphrase Longfellow, at the risk of sounding completely pretentious: "when it was good it was very, very good, and when it was bad it was..." To be completely fair, "horrid" is a bit extreme, because this book wasn't awful - it's just that I think it could have been better. I honestly felt the book could have been more balanced between history and analysis - sometimes (especially the early parts about Lenin, Stalin, and the USSR) I felt like the various works were getting lost in the wider history and context in which they were created, and perhaps that was the ultimate point, to see how these works were made, but... I don't know. On a more aesthetic level, while I can appreciate sarcasm and even enjoyed some of Kalder's snarkier moments, I sometimes felt the snark was distracting and that Kalder was (to give him the benefit of the doubt, likely unintentionally) mirroring the pretentious, overtly-theoretical prose which he spent much of his time dismissing.
Like I said, I don't know. It had a lot of good moments and it's definitely interesting, it's topical and relevant and I feel like I learned from it, but I'm not really sure I could honestly say I actually enjoyed reading it. But like its content, perhaps it's not so much meant to be enjoyed as it is meant to explain and teach.
Like I said, I don't know. It had a lot of good moments and it's definitely interesting, it's topical and relevant and I feel like I learned from it, but I'm not really sure I could honestly say I actually enjoyed reading it. But like its content, perhaps it's not so much meant to be enjoyed as it is meant to explain and teach.
bookwyrmbella's review against another edition
3.0
I have always been fascinated by history and why people did the things they did. This book was about some of the famous dictators we have all heard of and the books they have had published with their ideology. While the author did a lot of research and explained the different dictator's era's very well, the actually reading came off very dry. Some of the details and references are too in depth for the casual reader. I saw a glimpse of how amusing the author can write based on the introduction of the book but I think the research got in the way of his natural writing. This is the kind of book that would be best suited for someone who is doing research for a school project on a specific dictator mentioned in this book.
*Received eARC via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
*Received eARC via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
cynt's review against another edition
1.0
There's probably a very good and important book hidden behind the self-aggrandising narrator.
kikiandarrowsfishshelf's review
5.0
Disclaimer: ARC via Netgalley
I have to admit, I almost didn’t request this title from Netgalley. It wasn’t that the topic, a study of works by dictators, didn’t sound interesting. It did, but there also seemed a possibility for dryness, and I really wasn’t in the mood. But I requested it anyway.
I am very happy I did. Mr. Kalder, I am sorry for thinking it would be dry.
Honesty, you know you are in good hands when the book starts, “This is a book about dictator literature – that is to say, it is a book about the canon of works written or attributed to dictators. As such, it is a book about some of the worst books ever written, and so was excruciatingly painful to research.”
Kalder took one for the team, and quite frankly, we should repay him by reading this book.
The book isn’t so much literary criticism; though Kalder does not shy away from calling a bad book a bad book. For instance, on The Green Book, “it is not merely boring, or banal, or repetitive, or nonsensical, although it is certainly all those things. It is quite simply, stupid . . . “.
And he is fair, for Kalder notes of Mussolini’s bodice ripper (which isn’t really one apparently) that it is readable.
His survey of literature starts with the Russian revolution and includes present day dictators. Kalder is also as funny as, well, Monty Python.
What Kalder does is look at not only what the writings reveal about the dictators, but also why people didn’t take the books seriously as warnings of things to come. He points out that some people should have known better. He also connects it to the thinking and control process, showing how the works did reflect the personality of each man (and they are all men). He also addresses the weird beliefs that make their way into the books – Hussain had strange ideas about bears.
The book is an entertaining journey into some really strange minds that produced some really bad literature. Luckily for the reader, Kalder read it for us.
I have to admit, I almost didn’t request this title from Netgalley. It wasn’t that the topic, a study of works by dictators, didn’t sound interesting. It did, but there also seemed a possibility for dryness, and I really wasn’t in the mood. But I requested it anyway.
I am very happy I did. Mr. Kalder, I am sorry for thinking it would be dry.
Honesty, you know you are in good hands when the book starts, “This is a book about dictator literature – that is to say, it is a book about the canon of works written or attributed to dictators. As such, it is a book about some of the worst books ever written, and so was excruciatingly painful to research.”
Kalder took one for the team, and quite frankly, we should repay him by reading this book.
The book isn’t so much literary criticism; though Kalder does not shy away from calling a bad book a bad book. For instance, on The Green Book, “it is not merely boring, or banal, or repetitive, or nonsensical, although it is certainly all those things. It is quite simply, stupid . . . “.
And he is fair, for Kalder notes of Mussolini’s bodice ripper (which isn’t really one apparently) that it is readable.
His survey of literature starts with the Russian revolution and includes present day dictators. Kalder is also as funny as, well, Monty Python.
What Kalder does is look at not only what the writings reveal about the dictators, but also why people didn’t take the books seriously as warnings of things to come. He points out that some people should have known better. He also connects it to the thinking and control process, showing how the works did reflect the personality of each man (and they are all men). He also addresses the weird beliefs that make their way into the books – Hussain had strange ideas about bears.
The book is an entertaining journey into some really strange minds that produced some really bad literature. Luckily for the reader, Kalder read it for us.