Power Mad!: A Book of Deranged Dictators

by Karl Shaw

Power Mad! is a candid collection of authentic, fantastic facts surrounding the world's most deranged dictators. Charting the grisly, sometimes unbelievable demands and "policies" of these mad, bad men, Power Mad! will leave you astonished by their egos, eccentricities, and undeniable insanity. Facts range from Chairman Mao banning The Sound of Music as "a blatant example of capitalist "pornography" to Idi Amin organizing basketball games in which he alone was allowed to score. He once had a palace guard killed for blocking his shot.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Karl Shaw writes humour and popular non-fiction titles including the New York Timss bestsellers Royal Babylon and 5 People Who Died During Sex. His most recent is the acclaimed historic true crime thriller The Killing of Lord George: A Tale of Murder and Deceit in Edwardian England.

Reviews

[Michael Gerald · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had a mix of laughter and grimness reading this small book, with its snippets of the different eccentricities and atrocities committed by the world's club of people who believed that they are above the law, or even THE law.

[Uku · Rating 3 out of 5]

Delightful collection of some deranged and disturbing things that some of the world's dictators have done in their lives. There would most likely be more of that stuff. I didn't know that I needed to read this book, but I needed to read this one. A dose of seratonine that keeps you occupied for few hours. -Depends how fast you read and you don't have to even try to squish it through a day. Am hoping that there would be a sequal with the world's more recent deranged dictators and what their brainfarts.

I think the book had been even better if it had introduced the dictators and listed the most notorious stuff that they had done instead of going all divide and conquer and throw them under different categories. Categories on these matters are pretty pointless when there is plenty of material for each subject.