"Traveling across four continents, from the ruins of Iraq to the savannahs of Kenya, Witold Szabłowski tracked down the personal chefs of five dictators known for the oppression and massacre of their own citizens: Iraq's Saddam Hussein, Uganda's Idi Amin, Albania's Enver Hoxha, Cuba's Fidel Castro, and Cambodia's Pol Pot-and listened to their stories over sweet-and-sour soup, goat-meat pilaf, bottles of rum, and games of gin rummy. Dishy, deliciously...

Ruth Ben-Ghiat lays bare the blueprint leaders from Mussolini to Trump have followed over the past 100 years, and empowers us to recognize, resist, and prevent their disastrous rule in the future. Authoritarian rulers promise law and order, then legitimize lawbreaking by financial, sexual, and other predators. They use masculinity as a symbol of strength and a political weapon, and they use propaganda, corruption, and violence to stay in power. Vladimir...

"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...

"Since the days of the Roman Empire dictators have written books. But in the twentieth-century despots enjoyed unprecedented print runs to (literally) captive audiences. The titans of the genre--Stalin, Mussolini, and Khomeini among them--produced theoretical works, spiritual manifestos, poetry, memoirs, and even the occasional romance novel and established a literary tradition of boundless tedium that continues to this day. How did the production...

After being appointed the dictator of Freedonia, Rufus T. Firefly proceeds to bring the mythical nation to a halt by showing up late and insulting everyone at his inauguration. Hoping to oust the unfit new leader, two spies are sent from the neighboring Sylvania. Soon enough, war is declared between the two nations with outrageous results. Including Groucho's famous mirror scene and final battle scene, it remains as entertaining and relevant today...

"From dystopian visionary and bestselling phenomenon Veronica Roth comes a razor-sharp reimagining of Antigone. In Arch-Conspirator, Roth reaches back to the root of legend and delivers a world of tomorrow both timeless and unexpected. "A gut punch of a story. Roth takes everything fragile about love, everything powerful about certain doom, and blooms with it. You'll be holding your breath until the very last word"--Olivie Blake, New York Times bestselling...

Welcome to Rekall, the company that can turn your dreams into real memories. For a factory worker named Douglas Quaid, even though he's got a beautiful wife who he loves, the mind-trip sounds like the perfect vacation from his frustrating life. But when the procedure goes horribly wrong, Quaid becomes a hunted man.

Shipwrecked and cast ashore in Japan with no memory of Temeraire or his own experiences as an English aviator, Capt. William Laurence finds himself tangled in deadly political intrigues that threaten not only his own life but England's already precarious position in the Far East.

A Fidel Castro-like octogenarian Cuban exile obsessively seeks revenge against the dictator.