{"title":"Frank Dikoetter","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"how-to-be-a-dictator-book-frank-dikoetter-9781635573794","title":"How to Be a Dictator","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom the Samuel Johnson Prize-winning author of \u003ci\u003eMao's Great Famine\u003c\/i\u003e, a sweeping and timely study of twentieth-century dictators and the development of the modern cult of personality.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e In \u003ci\u003eHow to Be a Dictator\u003c\/i\u003e, Frank Dik tter 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, Xi Jinping, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Using a breadth of archival research and his characteristic in-depth analysis, Dik tter 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.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49769384935697,"sku":"CIN1635573793G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50467860316433,"sku":"CIN1635573793VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1635573793.jpg?v=1751409532"},{"product_id":"china-after-mao-book-frank-dikoetter-9781526660541","title":"China After Mao","description":"'A leading historian of modern China. He is a rare scholar, adept in both Russian and Chinese . . . Combined with this linguistic skill, Dikötter has a writer's gift' EVENING STANDARDFrom the Samuel Johnson Prize-winning author of Mao's Great Famine, a timely and compelling account of China in the wake of Chairman MaoIn China After Mao, award-winning historian Frank Dikötter explores how the People's Republic of China was transformed from a backwater economy in the 1970s into the world superpower of today. His account is the first to be based on hundreds of previously unseen archival documents, from the secret minutes of top party meetings to confidential bank reports. Unfolding with great narrative sweep, this riveting, richly detailed chronicle recasts our understanding of an era that both the regime and foreign admirers celebrate as an economic miracle.In charting four decades of so-called 'Reform and Opening Up' and China's emergence as a world power, Dikötter tells a fascinating tale of contradictions and illusions, of shadow banking, anti-corruption drives and extreme state wealth standing alongside everyday poverty. He examines China's approach to the 2008 financial crash, the country's increasing hostility towards perceived Western interference and its development into a thoroughly entrenched dictatorship - one equipped with a sprawling security apparatus and the most sophisticated surveillance system in the world. Ultimately, the book concludes, the communist party's goal was never to join the democratic sphere, but to resist it - and then defeat it.Praise for Frank Dikötter:'It will be increasingly difficult for Western China specialists to write with authority based only on previous Western publications or on Chinese public statements. We remain in Frank Dikötter's debt' LITERARY REVIEW'The historian of China' SPECTATOR'He combines a vivid eye for detail with a historian's diligence in the archives' OBSERVER","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50389004681489,"sku":"CIN1526660547G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":52111062565137,"sku":"NGR9781526660541","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1526660547.jpg?v=1750894178"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/author-books-by-frank-dikoetter.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}