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Davis, Kenneth C.

Strongman: The Rise of Five Dictators and the Fall of Democracy

272 pp. | Holt | October, 2020 | Trade ISBN 978-1-250-20564-3 $19.99 | Ebook ISBN 978-1-250-20565-0 $9.99
(2) YA After a brief introduction to the central figures and the crucial importance of understanding these men today, Davis opens his history of modern dictators with the burning of the Reichstag and Hitler's subsequent rise to absolute control over Germany. Flashing back to the infancy of democracy in ancient Greece and Rome, Davis lays out how democracies function and where they are susceptible to breaking. Following this history, readers are brought back to the twentieth century with a look at Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, then move forward chronologically through the rises and falls of Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Saddam Hussein. Each biographical history effectively places the dictator in time and aptly builds context around his ascent to power. Similarities in each figure's childhood are noted, but readers are often warned not to draw causal connections between the events of these men's youth and their notoriety in adulthood: "If every boy who has ever been expelled from school for fighting--or even attacking someone with a penknife--became a dictator, the world would have far more dictators." Davis's central thesis regarding the fragility of democracy reads as a warning to readers who will undoubtedly think about the current viability and strength of twenty-first-century democracies at home and abroad. This well-researched book includes extensive quotations from contemporaneous newspaper accounts as well as footnotes and an in-depth bibliography (which helpfully notes the titles most useful to young adult readers). Index unseen.
Reviewer: Eric Carpenter | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2021

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