An intelligent if less than blazingly original study of modern authoritarian leaders.
What does Donald Trump have in common with dictators like Hitler and Mussolini? A professor of history and Italian studies at NYU tallies the similarities.
This incisive study casts a wider geographic net than two recent books that have placed Trump on a continuum of authoritarian leaders: Géraldine Schwarz’s Those Who Forget, which set him in the context of rising far-right movements in Europe, and Eric Posner’s The Demagogue’s Playbook, which compared him to American tyrants. Ben-Ghiat shows how “strongmen” have undermined or destroyed democracy in three successive eras: the fascist takeovers (1919-1945) that gave rise to Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco; the military coups (1950-1990) that installed Gaddafi, Pinochet, and Sese Seko; and the elections (1990-present) that elevated Berlusconi, Erdogan, Putin, and Trump. Agreeing with the anthropologist Ernest Becker that it’s fear that makes people follow demagogues, Ben-Ghiat shows how modern strongmen have swayed the masses by exploiting three factors often cited by other scholars: violence, propaganda, and corruption. She also argues, more originally but less persuasively, that they flaunt a fourth trait, “virility,” manifested in acts such as Trump’s boasting of his sexual exploits to Access Hollywood and Putin’s posing shirtless for photos. This argument is her weakest partly because many nondespotic leaders have displayed a similar male bravado; shirtless photos of JFK and Reagan abound, and no U.S. president may have been more macho than big-game hunter Teddy Roosevelt. The author is on firmer ground when she shows how male leaders use “divide-and-rule” and other tactics to consolidate power, as Trump did in making states compete for medical equipment during the pandemic. Ben-Ghiat allows that women like Margaret Thatcher and Indira Gandhi “may have had certain strongman traits,” but she excludes them from scrutiny because “none of them sought to destroy democracy.” Given that this book is at heart a horror story, no female leader will regret her own exclusion.
An intelligent if less than blazingly original study of modern authoritarian leaders.Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-324-00154-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2020
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
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