Despotism is as old as the political condition of man and is the antithesis of free and decent human life. In the 20th century it took an impressive variety of forms. There were those who killed, immiserated, and imprisoned in the name of building truly “revolutionary” societies. These were the ideological tyrants — Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Mao — who killed in the name of perverted ideas — Communism, Fascism, National Socialism, revolution, progress. There were the old-fashioned despots — Bokassa, Amin, Duvalier, Mobutu — who read like a page ripped out of the historians of antiquity: They needed no ideology to justify their depredations. Some, such as the Kims in North Korea, combine sincerely held ideological fanaticism with the pure capriciousness of the non-ideological tyrant. All despots show contempt for the moral law and elementary human decency.
NR senior editor Jay Nordlinger has written a gem of a book that is at once an authoritative guide to 20th-century despotism and, even more compellingly, an astute moral and psychological study of the children of 20 of the worst dictators of the 20th century. (Not all were outright monsters: Nordlinger convincingly argues that the Spanish strongman Francisco Franco — a moderate authoritarian for much of his rule — was a “relative lamb” compared with the others.) The book had its distant origin in a trip to Albania. While there, Nordlinger inquired whether the cruel and fanatical Albanian tyrant Enver Hoxha had had children, and, if so, what they and their lives were like. As it turned out, all were unapologetic defenders of their tyrant father.
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