Book

From Benito Mussolini to Hugo Chavez : intellectuals and a century of political hero worship

Hollander, Paul, 1932- author

Overview

During the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, political dictators were not only popular in their own countries, but were also admired by numerous highly educated and idealistic Western intellectuals. The objects of this political hero-worship included Benito Mussolini, Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro and more recently Hugo Chavez, among others. This book seeks to understand the sources of these misjudgements and misperceptions, the specific appeals of particular dictators, and the part played by their charisma, or pseudo-charisma. It sheds new light not only on the political disposition of numerous Western intellectuals - such as Martin Heidegger, Eric Hobsbawm, Norman Mailer, Ezra Pound, Susan Sontag and George Bernard Shaw - but also on the personality of those political leaders who encouraged, and in some instances helped to design, the cult surrounding their rise to dictatorship.

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Subject: Intellectuals Political activity History 20th century. / Intellectuals Attitudes History 20th century. / Dictators 20th century.
• ISBN: 9781107071032, 1107071038, 9781107415072, 1107415071

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Call Number	Copies	Material	Location
HM728.H65 2016	1	BOOK	GENERAL