How to Be a Dictator: An Irreverent Guide

by Mikal Hem

Overview

A Tongue-in-Cheek Guide to Becoming a Dictator, Based on the Outrageous, Scandalous, and Excessive Behavior of Dictators Past and Present

Who hasn’t dreamed of one day ruling your own country? Along with great power comes unlimited influence, control, admiration, and often wealth. How to Be a Dictator will teach you the tricks of the trade—how to rise to the top and stay in power, and how to enjoy the fruits of your excellence.

Featuring examples from the most successful leaders and regimes in the business, including Kim Jong Il, Robert Mugabe, Muammar Gaddafi, Nicolae Ceausescu, François “Papa Doc” Duvalier, and many others, this handy guide offers ten easy lessons on becoming and acting like a dictator from how to rig an election and create your own personality cult to the dos and don’ts of dictator fashion. Other topics include: how to become wealthy and spend your fortune, sleeping around, expressing your literary genius, and how to avoid being toppled, exiled, and or meeting any other dismal end. Combining black humor with political insights, How to Be a Dictator is peppered with horrifying and hilarious stories from some of the most eccentric modern world leaders.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781628726602
Publisher:	Arcade
Publication date:	06/06/2017
Pages:	200
Sales rank:	271,676
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Mikal Hem has worked as journalist and political commentator for the newspapers Bergens Tidende, Dagblade, and Verdens Gang as well as the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. He researched media censorship in authoritarian regimes at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University and has traveled extensively as a reporter, spending periods in Africa and the countries of the former Soviet Union. During his childhood, his family lived for a time in Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe. He currently resides in Oslo, Norway.

Editorial Reviews

“An extraordinarily funny study of political thinking, serious beneath the surface, filled with dark humor and remarkable facts.” —Dagbladet

“Serious subject handled in a most humorous way . . . The details about the reign of small and large lunatics in a number of countries is in the background. But with his special take on the subject, and his relaxed, dry humour, it gets most readable. The book could just as well be read as a lesson in fun facts before a quiz night, as it can be a reminder of corruption, murder, and misgovernment.” —Faedrelandsvennen

“Light and entertaining. Lots of facts. You’ll want to know more about the dictatorships after reading the book.” —Finansavisen

“Perhaps I Can Be a Dictator is for more than just laughs. The book is a funny reminder of how depressingly rich our flora of tyrants really is.” —Klassekampen

“This book lets you know what to do to climb to the top—and stay there. Useful advice and guidelines to avoid trouble is also included. Humor!” —Tønsberg Blad

“One might almost believe that President al-Sisi of Egypt had studied Mikal Hem's thoroughly researched handbook, How to Be a Dictator. Al-Sisi fulfills almost all of the criteria that the Norwegian journalist points out for the successful way to create a dictatorship.” —Die Presse (Austria)

“4/5 stars: This collection of facts and anecdotes about style, wealth, and personality cults is entertaining to read while still remaining reasonably serious.” —Stern (Germany)

“5/6 stars: Mikal Hem has written a lively little book. His pitch-black satire exposes some of the world’s most dangerous and unintentionally comical people.” —Jyllands-Posten (Denmark)

“An extraordinarily funny study of political thinking, serious beneath the surface, filled with dark humor and remarkable facts.” —Dagbladet

“Serious subject handled in a most humorous way . . . The details about the reign of small and large lunatics in a number of countries is in the background. But with his special take on the subject, and his relaxed, dry humour, it gets most readable. The book could just as well be read as a lesson in fun facts before a quiz night, as it can be a reminder of corruption, murder, and misgovernment.” —Faedrelandsvennen

“Light and entertaining. Lots of facts. You’ll want to know more about the dictatorships after reading the book.” —Finansavisen

“Perhaps I Can Be a Dictator is for more than just laughs. The book is a funny reminder of how depressingly rich our flora of tyrants really is.” —Klassekampen

“This book lets you know what to do to climb to the top—and stay there. Useful advice and guidelines to avoid trouble is also included. Humor!” —Tønsberg Blad

“One might almost believe that President al-Sisi of Egypt had studied Mikal Hem's thoroughly researched handbook, How to Be a Dictator. Al-Sisi fulfills almost all of the criteria that the Norwegian journalist points out for the successful way to create a dictatorship.” —Die Presse (Austria)

“4/5 stars: This collection of facts and anecdotes about style, wealth, and personality cults is entertaining to read while still remaining reasonably serious.” —Stern (Germany)

“5/6 stars: Mikal Hem has written a lively little book. His pitch-black satire exposes some of the world’s most dangerous and unintentionally comical people.” —Jyllands-Posten (Denmark)

From the Publisher

2017-04-02
The lighter side of tyranny.Those who appreciated the satirical bite of Borat will find a kindred spirit here, though enjoying Norwegian journalist Hem's humor is easier if you forget the brutality, impoverishment, imprisonment, and murder that come along with despotism. The author draws from personal experience living in Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe as well as anecdotal evidence from the totalitarian regimes in Uganda, Cuba, North Korea, and elsewhere. " ‘You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time,' said Abraham Lincoln. Obviously, he was no dictator," writes the author, who shows readers how to become a dictator and stay in power as well as how to behave while in power (get rich, help your friends and family, become extravagant in your furnishings and sexual appetites) and how to plan for the possibility that your reign might end. Hem uses facts to underscore his absurdities, such as the ascent of a Central African dictator: "The total coronation cost is calculated to be $22 million, a fourth of the country's annual budget. At that point, two-thirds of the country's four million inhabitants lived on less than one dollar a day." Funny? Or tragic? Maybe such atrocity is best reflected through the fun-house mirror, and maybe more readers will learn about the conditions under which much of the world lives through such a satirical approach. And maybe someone will be motivated enough to follow its precepts to achieve the rewards it promises—though becoming a dictator, the author acknowledges, is easiest if your father is one or if you have an army behind you. "If you succeed as dictator," writes Hem, "you are guaranteed a life filled with excitement, unlimited power, a population that worships you like a god, and, most of all, fantastic wealth." Alternately amusing and depressing, a hit-or-miss book of political satire.

Kirkus Reviews