pickDespite #DannyBoy‘s best efforts, and the weight of the real-world insanity, I finally finished this amazing book. Highly recommend for anyone wanting to understand what is happening and how we got here, although be cautioned that Russell Vought and Co seem to be using this as a how-to guide.
pickBased on the rating system described below, I give this one a 3.5.
4: Outstanding. At the end of the year, this will be one of the top five or ten books I've read this year.
3.5: Good.
3: Better than So-So; good enough.
2.5: So-So
2: Bad, but I finished it
1: Did not finish
0: Not only did I not finish, but this book/author actually annoyed me
...(Continued)...history, enabling dangerous individuals to enter mainstream politics and gain control of government.
As the anthropologist Ernest Becker observes:
It is fear that makes people so willing to follow brash, strong-looking demagogues...capable of cleansing the world of the vague, the weak, the uncertain, the evil. Ah, to give oneself over to their direction--what calm, what relief.
Deutsche Bank has funded authoritarian states from Hitler's Germany to Putin's Russia, as well as lending to businesses like the Trump organization that are suspected of helping autocrats and their cronies to launder their money.
pickWatching real-life strongman moves while reading this book is both surreal and chilling. If you think I‘m just “being political,” then this book is for you. It covers history of 17 different strongmen rulers over the last 100 years. All over the world, they draw from the same tools to rule their countries. She includes a section on toppling them as well, so there‘s hope.
Full review http://www.TheBibliophage.com #thebibliophage2020 #thxnetgalley
After a few weeks of mystery / thrillers and some lighter nonfiction, I think I can actually concentrate on the heavier fare again. Oh, and the second of the Obama Biden tongue-in-cheek capers from Andrew Shaffer. Wonder where he‘ll go with this series now ... if at all? (As an aside, Shaffer keeps commenting on my tweets ... which influenced my choice here too. 😎)
#weeklyforecast #nonfictionchallenge2020 (Parkland) #netgalley (Strongmen)
Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present | 
