英國年度非文學作品大獎─山謬‧強森獎Samuel Johnson Prize得主
當代中國史學重量級學者─馮克Frank Dik?tter
繼《人民的悲劇三部曲》最新力作,犀利剖析獨裁者如何被人們狂熱崇拜!
要靠恐懼和暴力治理國家,並非獨裁者一人就可以辦到的,或許他們可以大權在握、呼風喚雨一陣子,但不可能長久。
拜科技所賜,二十世紀的統治者得以在每個人的家中播送他們的理念,藉由顯明的畫面、鏗鏘有力的聲音,讓人民在潛移默化下接收、進而接受他們所要傳遞的訊息。
當代獨裁政權因希特勒、毛澤東與金日成而啟,但他們並非各自為政,他們會互相學習,並檢視彼此的國家歷史,從而創建出最適合自己國家的獨裁政權、最為人民所接受的領導形象;而他們所創造的獨裁政權,更影響了二十一世紀的俄羅斯總統普丁、中國共產黨總書記習近平,與土耳其總統雷傑普·塔伊普·艾爾多安。
馮客檢視二十世紀八位指標性的獨裁者:包含希特勒、毛澤東及金日成…檢視當時的社會風氣,以及當時發放的各式傳單、手冊,更進一步解析這些獨裁者如何運用各種手法,建立自己光輝的形象,將它們深植於大眾心中。讓其性格成為人們追捧的特質,讓他們的作為,則化作傾心崇拜的楷模。為獨裁政權建立堅如磐石的基礎,縱使局外人覺得一切如何荒誕,著了迷的人,卻絲毫未察表象下埋藏的自私陰險。
當今日我們感受到自由民主的腹背受敵,這本切時之作,是對歷史精準的剖析審視,而明白了那些在背後操縱眾人心智的手段之後,更將喚醒我們的警醒,在陷入新一次的癡迷崇拜前,識清包藏於其核心的專橫本質。(文/博客來編譯)
'Brilliant' NEW STATESMAN, BOOKS OF THE YEAR
'Enlightening and a good read' SPECTATOR
'Moving and perceptive' NEW STATESMAN
Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Kim Il-sung, Ceausescu, Mengistu of Ethiopia and Duvalier of Haiti.
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. A tyrant who can compel his own people to acclaim him will last longer. The paradox of the modern dictator is that he must create the illusion of popular support. Throughout the twentieth century, hundreds of millions of people were condemned to enthusiasm, obliged to hail their leaders even as they were herded down the road to serfdom.
In How to Be a Dictator, Frank Dikötter returns to eight of the most chillingly effective personality cults of the twentieth century. From carefully choreographed parades to the deliberate cultivation of a shroud of mystery through iron censorship, these dictators ceaselessly worked on their own image and encouraged the population at large to glorify them. At a time when democracy is in retreat, are we seeing a revival of the same techniques among some of today's world leaders?
This timely study, told with great narrative verve, examines how a cult takes hold, grows, and sustains itself. It places the cult of personality where it belongs, at the very heart of tyranny.
Reviews:
“Essential reading … The standalone portraits of his eight dictators are riveting” – Justin Marozzi, Evening Standard, 'Book of the Week'
“How to be a dictator? Ruthlessness matters a lot more than talent, but luck most of all. That is the upshot of Frank Dikötter's elegant and readable study of the cult of personality in the 20th century … [Dikötter's] penmanship and eye for anecdote brings [the dictators] to life” – The Times
“A brilliant study of twentieth-century dictatorship … The book's psychological insight is devastating, the stories are eye-popping … Essential reading for any student of political manipulation, as a study of man's inhumanity to man, it's almost unbearably moving” – Sue Prideaux, New Statesman, Books of the Year
“A disturbing emblem of our times” – Justin Marozzi, Evening Standard, 'Best Books to Take on Holiday'
“A whistlestop tour of some of the most infamous leaders of the 20th century … What Dikötter does so well is to find the pathological and ideological connections among leaders who “teetered between hubris and paranoia”” – Observer
“Frank Dikötter provides a timely reminder of just how destructive toxic insecurity, and its corollary, pathological narcissism, can become … In terms of the dynamics of narcissistic authoritarianism, there is much in How to Be a Dictator that is of critical contemporary relevance … History only makes sense if we understand the psychological pathology that underlies it, and our own propensity for partaking in such pathology. We need a clear-eyed understanding of history as a recurring series of monumental follies, led by cretins who duped or forced millions of us into humiliating childish submission. Only then can we hope to avoid the repetition. Dikötter is in the vanguard of historians opening our eyes to this fundamental truth” – Irish Times
“Enlightening and a good read” – Spectator
“A heroic piece of research … Devastating in every sense of the word” – Praise for 'Mao's Great Famine', Economist
“Ground-breaking … Unsparing in its detail, relentless in its research, unforgiving in its judgements … Dikötter's achievement in this book is remarkable” – Praise for 'The Tragedy of Liberation', Sunday Times
“Worryingly close to home … Dikötter has put together sharp portraits of Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Kim Il-sung, Duvalier, Ceausescu and Mengistu” – Times Higher Education
“How to Be a Dictator is a timely book and enjoyable to read. It is strangely comforting to be reminded that many of the dictators in Dikötter's book came to an ignominious end. But that is no excuse for underestimating the need to protect democracy today” – Financial Times
“Definitive and harrowing” – praise for 'The Cultural Revolution', Book of the Week, Daily Mail
“Dikötter never allows his intense account to degenerate into melodrama … Fascinating ” – praise for 'The Cultural Revolution', Daily Telegraph
“Magnificent ... The author gives full acknowledgement to memoirs and scholarly works but it is his own archival research, allied to a piercing critique, that lifts the book to a higher level. He has mastered the details so well that with the most sparing use of description he weaves a vivid tapestry of China at the time …Brilliant” – praise for 'The Cultural Revolution', Sunday Times