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michael_soileau's review against another edition
4.0
This book is basically a collection of brief biographies connected by the theme of a dictatorial cult of personality. While the idea is interesting and new, I'd have enjoyed some more synthesis and exploration of the the idea of such a cult, more than another example of another dictatorship that followed the same pattern.
nahnahnahnatnat's review against another edition
dark
funny
informative
medium-paced
herri1je's review against another edition
2.0
Not my favorite...
I'm an avid history reader but I felt like this book was a bit misleading. With a cheeky title, I though this would include some wit as well as a historical account. I did some digging and found that the ARC was printed under a different original title; I think the title change was the publisher's move to try to get it to appeal to a wider audience. Overall I found it to be dry and at times hard to get through. At least it was only 200 pages.
I'm an avid history reader but I felt like this book was a bit misleading. With a cheeky title, I though this would include some wit as well as a historical account. I did some digging and found that the ARC was printed under a different original title; I think the title change was the publisher's move to try to get it to appeal to a wider audience. Overall I found it to be dry and at times hard to get through. At least it was only 200 pages.
morrxson's review
3.0
I wanted to like and finish this book, but I really couldn’t. It doesn’t argue anything new and felt very surface level for me and more like a chapter I’d read for a first year uni course.
katykelly's review against another edition
3.0
Read to Kim/North Korea.
While I found this rather interesting, it really did just feel like a book of repeating facts on each historical figure. No commentary, opinion or insight was offered. Bare facts of each dictatorial system (though the parallels were frightening and obvious) were given.
It was a rather dry read and on coming to the final three, none of whom I know anything about, I couldn’t make myself continue.
Glad I now know more about the first few ‘world leaders’, but it wasn’t an easy read, took weeks instead of days to get that far for me, the style just didn’t sit well with me, even though the content and facts themselves were (and should be) fascinating and widely-studied.
With thanks to Netgalley for the sample reading copy.
While I found this rather interesting, it really did just feel like a book of repeating facts on each historical figure. No commentary, opinion or insight was offered. Bare facts of each dictatorial system (though the parallels were frightening and obvious) were given.
It was a rather dry read and on coming to the final three, none of whom I know anything about, I couldn’t make myself continue.
Glad I now know more about the first few ‘world leaders’, but it wasn’t an easy read, took weeks instead of days to get that far for me, the style just didn’t sit well with me, even though the content and facts themselves were (and should be) fascinating and widely-studied.
With thanks to Netgalley for the sample reading copy.