About the Author

Frank Dikötter is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is also Chair Professor of Humanities at the University of Hong Kong. His books have changed the way historians view China, from the classic The Discourse of Race in Modern China to his award-winning People's Trilogy documenting the lives of ordinary people under Mao. He lives in Palo Alto, California.

Reviews

"Takes off from a conviction, no doubt born of [Dikötter's] Mao studies, that a tragic amnesia about what ideologues in power are like has taken hold of too many minds amid the current 'crisis of liberalism.' And so he attempts a sort of anatomy of authoritarianism, large and small, from Mao to Papa Doc Duvalier. Each dictator's life is offered with neat, mordant compression. Dikötter's originality is that he counts crimes against civilization alongside crimes against humanity." --The New Yorker "Historically detailed and compelling in its chronicling of how dictators set about organizing an entire society around their own glorification and power." --Tablet Magazine "Monuments crumble and statues fall, but How to Be a Dictator succeeds in identifying how and why linguistic domination has lasting power." --Paste "Dikötter writes with academic rigor and awareness that these megalomaniacal figures continue to inspire fascination relevant to politically volatile times." --Kirkus Reviews "What the eminent scholar [Dikotter] has provided is much more than a history lesson from the past - it is a warning and a cautionary tale for what could lie ahead. As such, it should be required reading for anyone who wants the future to be qualitatively better than the past ... Highly recommended." --Bowling Green Daily News