A review by its_kievan
How to Be a Dictator: The Cult of Personality in the Twentieth Century by Frank Dikötter

informative medium-paced

2.5

While Dikötter clearly knows his history, for a book titled “How to Be a Dictator” there’s surprisingly little information about how exactly these cults of personality were developed. Dikötter’s summaries of each dictator make mention of statues, badges, and propaganda broadcasts, but read more like Wikipedia summaries than in-depth analyses. Crucially, he makes no real effort to compare his subjects to one another or to interrogate how and why they were able to seize and maintain power. Again, the summaries are well-written and well-researched, but they leave you with the impression that dictatorships are a naturally-occurring, cyclical event - like a monsoon season with a higher death toll.