Frank Dikötter. How to Be a Dictator. London, Bloomsbury Academic, 0.

How to Be a Dictator: The Cult of Personality in the Twentieth Century by historian Frank Dikötter is a gripping historical analysis of how eight 20th-century tyrants maintained power. It argues that fear and violence alone are never enough to sustain a dictatorship; instead, ruthless leaders rely on carefully crafted personality cults.