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/lit/ - Literature

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3960729 No.3960729 [Reply] [Original]

Any books written in the perspective of a dictator or leader of a country? chronicling rise-to-power or day-to-day nation managing, iunno.
Time-period doesn't matter.

>> No.3960770

Autumn of the Patriarch

>> No.3960774

>>3960770
wow, thanks. i had no idea that there was a whole latin-american "dictator novel" genre

>> No.3960775

>>3960729
>Obligatory Mein Kampf mention even though I've never read it.

>> No.3960779

Wow OP; thanks for the idea, that'd be a great read

>> No.3960780
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3960780

pic related

>> No.3960781

You could play Tropico 4

>> No.3960782

>>3960775
i was thinking more about fiction, and involving authoritarianism in general, not specifically fascism or nazism

>> No.3960801

I, Claudius maybe?

>> No.3960806

>>3960782
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dictator_Novel#Classic_dictator_novels

Do you even wikipedia

>> No.3960811

>>3960729

That's actually something I've been working on. A weak king is deposed and another man takes the throne. An iron tyrant that rebuilds the country and basically fixes most of the problems that the other king could not or would not fix. He's not just doing it for power, there is a greater threat out there and that's why he sought power, to make the country strong enough to withstand the onslaught.

Of course I'm intending for it to be a lot more complicated then that, much of the story is shaping into political intrigue, it won't just be "hurr i'm da king now" but more a long and complicated weave leading the events in that direction.

It's been done before, but I've always liked that idea of "being an asshole for the sake of the greater good".

>> No.3960814

>>3960811
>That's actually something I've been working on. A weak king is deposed and another man takes the throne. An iron tyrant that rebuilds the country and basically fixes most of the problems that the other king could not or would not fix. He's not just doing it for power, there is a greater threat out there and that's why he sought power, to make the country strong enough to withstand the onslaught.

you writing about King Arthur?

>> No.3960820

>>3960811
so sorta like an altruistic Richard III?

>> No.3961102

god emperor of dune

>> No.3961979

>>3960811
Stannis Baratheon?

>> No.3963473

100 years of solitude, kinda

>> No.3963486

>>3960729
some dictators actually wrote autobiographies. even though the narrators aren't exacly reliable.
if you are looking for fiction,dune and dune messiah are IMHO good takes on the cult of personality...

>> No.3963765

I'm a fan of the short story "By His Bootstraps" by Robert A. Heinlein for a slightly different angle. It's a quick read time travel story that I probably just ruined by noting that it's written from the point of a dictator...

>> No.3963777
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3963777

>>3960782

Whatever suits you, but Mein Kampf really gets you inside the mind of a Nazi German in the 1930s. Hitler pretty much spells out why he did what he did, how he did it, and why it worked. It's almost a manual for fascism.

The scary part is when you find yourself nodding at parts. The man was good at what he did.

>> No.3963815

>>3963486
Can you point me to some? Preferably by kings and emperors.

Did Julius Caesar wrote anything auto biographical or how to turn a republic into an empire?

>> No.3963904

watch Idi Amin: Autoportrait

>> No.3963908

>>3960811

King Revan?

>> No.3963918

>>3963815

Marcus Aurelius, one of the better emperors wrote http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meditations

>> No.3963957

>>3963815
Julius Caesar wrote several works, but the only ones that survive are his Commentaries on the Gallic wars (his conquest of Gaul, which was the Roman name for the land that mostly corresponds to modern-day France) and on the Civil war which established the first triumvirate and propelled him to power.

<a href="http://classics.mit.edu/Caesar/gallic.html" target="_blank">Here</a> is a link to his Commentarii de Bello Gallico in English...

and <a href="http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/CaeComm.html" target="_blank">Here</a> is a link to an English summary of his Commentarii de Bello Civili. I couldn't find an easily available direct translation of that one.

>> No.3963959

>>3963957
>http://classics.mit.edu/Caesar/gallic.html
>http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/CaeComm.html

>> No.3964375

>>3963486
One underrated book in that genre is Codreanu's For My Legionaries. It was supposedly written during one year, is his political testament (testament is something you write when you're know you gonna die, derp) and covers the second half of his life.

However, I suggest that you read Focault's Pendulum by Eco first, because you're in for a ride into the paranoid mind. What Eco satirizes and lampoons with Rat Pack-style, Codreanu dorks on, with his greasy dick hanging out for all to see.