Dr. Frank Dikötter is the author of How to Be a Dictator: The Cult of Personality in the Twentieth Century (2019). Students and scholars of toxic leadership and despots need this book. The cult of personality is one of the tactics in the dictator's playbook. Dictators gain the adoration of the masses to ensure no resistance to their policies. 

Travel around the world and learn detailed insights about the dictator's world. Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Kim Il-sung, Duvalier, Ceausescu, and Mengistu have overlapping themes of practice as despots. The personal quirks and patterns offer us some much needed backstory into their regimes and styles of rule.