Dictators and Dictatorships

by Natasha M. Ezrow, Erica Frantz

Discusses how dictatorships work, looking at leaders, elites, and regime dynamics, synthesizing foundational and cutting-edge research on authoritarian politics, and integrating theory with case studies.

Genres: Politics, History, International Relations, Nonfiction

336 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2011

Reviews

[Matt Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book, reads like a bed time story. Having just put the book down i feel like i just finished an intro course into the political science of Dictatorships.

[Tahazen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Found this book because it relates to a potential class I was going to teach on Dictators/Authoritarianism.

I'm currently not scheduled to teach the class, but if I was going to I would assign this book. It is a great resource to an upper-level Political Science course on dictators/authoritarian regimes. Overall it addresses the literature, synthesizes the major themes and provides some brief case studies.

If I teach the a class on Dictators and Authoritarian Regimes in the future, I'll definitely reexamine this book. Hopefully by then a new edition will be out by then. (Especially since this book was released just before the Arab Spring uprising).

[Terri Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this for a graduate seminar and loved it. It is clearly written, interesting, and includes so much fascinating information on 20th and 21st century dictators and how authoritarian regimes are born, survive, and are overthrown. Unlike most academic books on the graduate level, this one is pleasant to read and not full of boring material.