Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present

How authoritarian leaders rise, rule, and fall, traced across a century and many countries by a historian of fascism. Ben-Ghiat anatomizes the strongman's toolkit, the propaganda, the corruption, the cultivated machismo, the assault on truth, and shows the same moves recurring from Mussolini to the present. The value is pattern recognition: once you have seen the playbook laid out, you cannot unsee it. A field guide to one-man rule and to the ways it has been resisted.

A historian of fascism and authoritarian leadership who reads the present through the long record of the strongman. Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present traces how authoritarian leaders rise, rule, and fall, the propaganda, the corruption, the cultivated machismo, across a century and many countries. She writes the comparative anatomy of one-man rule, and the patterns by which it has been resisted.