Strongman: The Rise Of Five Dictators And The Fall Of Democracy, by Kenneth C. Davis

It is obvious, in light of contemporary concerns about the fate of the United States and other democratic and republican nations, that this book was written as a cautionary tale of how contemporary democracies could fall into the hands of a brutal dictator of the kind that the author discusses. The question–and the author leaves it intentionally ambiguous–that remains is how the past is best to serve as a warning for the present. Many people who claim to be concerned about the fate of democratic norms seem to focus their attention only on populism from the right, seeing every populist leader as some sort of Hitler incarnate. This book manages to avoid being so obvious, and though it is by no means a perfect account or even as helpful as it could be, it at least manages to do better than most books do by its restraint. The fact that the book is not in a hurry to paint every slightly right-of-center populist leader as a future Hitler is by no means a great virtue, but it is one that is appreciated anyway in light of the shortcomings of so much contemporary reportage and “historical” writing.

One of the areas where this book does not quite succeed in its aim of tying together the rise of dictators in the past with the fall of democracy that many people fear in the present, though, is when we look at the situations in which dictators arose in history,. The author presents five dictators as the models for how dictators could arise in the present, but of the five, only two of them arose in governments that were anything close to democracies, and both of those were highly flawed democracies where dictators had an ambiguous appeal both left and right of center, in the sense that both dictators came from a socialist as well as a nationalist background. The other three dictators arose in atmospheres of civil war and failing strongman politics, where there was no democracy to overthrow because the nations had not experienced democracy. Even to this day, a great many dictators arise in situations where there are no republican norms to overthrow for a leader to gain power, but merely some failed attempt at a strongman, or a state that is in a state of considerable anarchy and disarray with numerous armed groups competing, some of them for power over central government, some of them for the independence of breakaway regions, and so on. In such atmospheres of communal violence and state failure, democracy doesn’t have a chance anyway, so how much can we learn from its supposed failure to prevent a strongman from rising up when tyranny is viewed by many as preferable to the random violence of anarchy?

In terms of its contents, this book is composed of eight chapters that together make up around 225 pages or so of material. The book begins with an introduction that discusses dictators, despots, and democracy, making it clear that the book is meant with today’s political situation in mind. The author then looks at the vulnerability of democracy throughout history (1). After that the author discusses a brief history of democracy from Athens to 1918, giving some brief historical context (2). After that the author discusses the life and narrative of Benito Mussolini, who rose to power in the aftermath of World War I with the betrayal that Italy felt at the denial of its war aims that had led it to enter the war on the side of the Allies (3). This is followed by a discussion of the life of Hitler, without whom any discussion of contemporary fears of dictators would be woefully incomplete (4). After that the author talks about Stalin as the self-proclaimed man of steel, pointing out his life story as well as his rise to and use of power in the Soviet Union (5). The next chapter provides the life story of Mao Zedong, who rose to power in the midst of China’s chaos and victory in a Civil War against his Nationalist rival Chaing Kai-Shek, who led a better regime but, alas, a more corrupt one at the time (6). This is followed by a discussion of the life and story of Saddam Hussein, who overthrew a regime that no one would have considered democratic before ruling and ruining Iraq (7). The book ends with a discussion of a new generation of possible monsters and the failure of those who would wish to deny that such monsters could ever rule the world as in times past (8). After that there are acknowledgements, a bibliography, notes, and an index.