How to Be a Dictator: An Irreverent Guide

A Tongue-in-Cheek Guide to Becoming a Dictator, Based on the Outrageous, Scandalous, and Excessive Behavior of Dictators Past and Present

Who hasn’t dreamed of one day ruling your own country? Along with great power comes unlimited influence, control, admiration, and often wealth. How to Be a Dictator will teach you the tricks of the trade—how to rise to the top and stay in power, and how to enjoy the fruits of your excellence.

Featuring examples from the most successful leaders and regimes in the business, including Kim Jong Il, Robert Mugabe, Muammar Gaddafi, Nicolae Ceausescu, François “Papa Doc” Duvalier, and many others, this handy guide offers ten easy lessons on becoming and acting like a dictator from how to rig an election and create your own personality cult to the dos and don’ts of dictator fashion. Other topics include: how to become wealthy and spend your fortune, sleeping around, expressing your literary genius, and how to avoid being toppled, exiled, and or meeting any other dismal end. Combining black humor with political insights, How to Be a Dictator is peppered with horrifying and hilarious stories from some of the most eccentric modern world leaders.

Mikal Hem has worked as journalist and political commentator for the newspapers Bergens Tidende, Dagblade, and Verdens Gang as well as the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. He researched media censorship in authoritarian regimes at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University and has traveled extensively as a reporter, spending periods in Africa and the countries of the former Soviet Union. During his childhood, his family lived for a time in Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe. He currently resides in Oslo, Norway.