Using a combination of charisma, fear, and propaganda, 20th- and 21st-century dictators have assembled a playbook on how to seize and hold power. This six-part PBS-aired series examines the lives of six dictators: North Korea’s Kim Il Sung, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Italy’s Benito Mussolini, Panama’s Manuel Noriega, Spain’s Francisco Franco, and Uganda’s Idi Amin. These men were generally raised in poverty, often bullied and belittled as children, used the military to personally advance, and indiscriminately employed terror and violence as a means of control. Kim Il Sung created an alternative reality, declaring himself a god-like figure who won a great victory over America in the Korean War, while also constructing a pervasive cult of personality that was passed on to his son and grandson. Hussein was both a wily politician and street-fighting thug, who used nationalism, threats, fear, and violence to control the population. Surrounded by sycophants, Hussein lacked any real understanding of history or the worldview of other nations. Mussolini started as a journalist, delivering words and images that helped to inspire Hitler’s murderous regime. Noriega drew on national pride, but was as much a gangster as a military man, smuggling drugs and arms, while also laundering money. Franco was calculating, gaining consent from religious figures and elites, while also purging enemies and wielding violence as a tool, believing that any show of mercy was a weakness. And Amin relied on the politics of distraction, ethnic expulsions, wars against neighbors, and state-sanctioned torture and murder to hold power. The Dictator’s Playbook notes that the dictators also learned from one another, employing the modern media to confuse, fan hatred, and indoctrinate; building public works for self-glorification; and getting secret police and henchmen to do their dirty work, while appearing to stay above the fray. Insightful comments from scholars and historians are interwoven with archival footage to present an unflinching, cautionary look at a modern-day political plague. Recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (S. Rees)
The Dictator’s Playbook
(2018) 2 discs. 340 min. DVD: $34.99 ($64.99 w/PPR). PBS Video. SDH captioned. ISBN: 978-1-5317-0923-5. Volume 34, Issue 5
The Dictator’s Playbook
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