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Title: Modern Tyrants by Daniel Chirot ISBN: 0-691-02777-3 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 15 April, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $31.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.5 (4 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: An essential study and explanation of evil
Comment: Chirot's text is a study of various tyrannies that took root during the twentieth-century. Although his primary focus is on those regimes most would not rationally have difficulty accepting as tyrannies (Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot), he does accept that there existed various government regimes throughout the last century (Pinochet, Ataturk, Franco) sitting on the 'periphery' of his classificatory scheme: depending on whether one chooses to critique the states' ultimate accomplishments or the means they used to get there, one could make a strong argument either way. A fuller discussion of these borderline regimes and their corresponding features would have been enlightening, but Chirot, understandably, explains that these considerations needlessly broaden the text's project. I also note a reviewer's commentary that s/he wished there had been less concern with the tyrants' personal lives. Although I agree that this practice sometimes veers into the tabloid-esque and challenges the seriousness and scholarly tone of the text (anyone want to know how many ties Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo had in his personal collection?), it is instructive to see that tyrants were, in fact, people capable of the same personal failings as the rest of us. With respect to tyrannies bent on realizing a given ideology, the fact that even the ruler deviated from the very standards that his/her subjects was forced to observe demonstrated the impracticability and inhumanity of their rule.
More than a plodding historical survey of twentieth-century tyranny, Chirot seeks to ask why the Hitlers and the Stalins arose when they did. This question prompts him to consider tyranny not as a unique and static phenomenon but, rather, a result of emerging ways of thinking that materialized out of the West during the nineteenth century. In particular, the superiority granted to the discourse of science and its findings led to a chain of circumstances (decentring of God, social Darwinism, colonialism) that informed not only how nation-states were governed, but also the rationalizations for governance. Chirot makes a strong case that since the rise of tyranny in the twentieth-century nation was largely a product of identical emerging discourses, many tyrannies shared not only the same features, but also evolved in similar ways.
Buttressing these features is the discourse of science; its emphasis on logic and absoluteness compels the (potential) despot to rule according to the 'tyranny of certitude.' For example, Marxism, which many influential thinkers believed was the science of history, provided the impetus for Stalin, Pol Pot, Chairman Mao, Kim Il Sung and many others to construct a brutal, rigid and unyielding understanding of social organization. No matter the countless atrocities they committed in following their road map, such rulers 'knew' that their scientific construction of politics would eventually give rise to a social utopia and allow a formerly great people to realize their place in the world. That these policies left the countries in much worse shape than when the leaders assumed control is a cruel and poignant irony.
Pick this book up. It is a fascinating and enlightening read.
Rating: 4
Summary: Mostly good
Comment: Chirot exposes some of the underpinnings that made the 20th century the bloodbath that it was.From the growing belief that scientific engineering could improve humans and possibly create Utopia;from the disjointedness and rootlessness that created a growing alienation with the trappings of modern life and the myths and hopes of a return to a slower-paced,more tribalistic,golden-age Utopianism;from the political charlatans who stepped into this morass to exploit it to their advantage.It's all here in great detail and erudition.Chirot ends the book with a not so comforting thought:that as long as there are masses of dissatisfied people there will be amoral madmen who will come and try to rally them.One disappointment with the book is that Chirot barely adresses the intellectual lights who advocated and willfully ignored the atrocities of the regimes they supported.From Shaw,Heidegger,Russell and their ilk,Chirot hardly acknowledges the role these men played in making the worst tyranny and madness imaginable intellectually palatable to the public.A wonderful book on this subject is_The treason of the intellectuals_by Julien Benda.
Rating: 1
Summary: This is not a very good book.
Comment: Chirot starts off fairly well, with a good discussion of different views of tyranny. Even his detailed descriptions of Hitler's and Stalin's regimes also include some interesting analyses on their similarities and differences. But in his descriptions (and they are just that, with virtually no effort at analysis) of two African regimes, Iraq and Argentina, and Duvalier in Haiti and Trujillo in the D.R. are shallow and perfunctory. At the end, he completely runs out of steam. The concluding chapter, which purports to put forward some "formal propositions", does not even attempt to draw together the material from the various case studies, and confines itself to rather sophomoric generalizations.
Furthermore, Chirot has a pointless and distasteful habit of relating the prurient details of these tyrants' personal lives.
A research assistant could have put together most of this book, as the bulk of it simply recapitulates various secondary sources. Not much analysis here, even for undergraduates, and it's a waste of time for grad students.
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Title: Handbook of the World (Oxford Paperback Reference) by Peter Stalker ISBN: 0192800930 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: January, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Talk of the Devil: Encounters With Seven Dictators by Riccardo Orizio, Avril Bardoni ISBN: 0802714161 Publisher: Walker & Co Pub. Date: April, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
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Title: The World and the West : The European Challenge and the Overseas Response in the Age of Empire by Philip D. Curtin ISBN: 0521890543 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 25 February, 2002 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study by Orlando Patterson ISBN: 067481083X Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: March, 1985 List Price(USD): $22.50 |
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Title: The Origins of the Modern World: A Global and Ecological Narrative by Robert B. Marks ISBN: 0742517543 Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield (Non NBN) Pub. Date: May, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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