Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Table of Contents v
3. Introduction vii
4. Contributors vii
5. The Tyrant with His Back to the Wall: Nero’s Artistic Self-Expansion 1
6. Benito Mussolini: “Babeuf ” (1902) 36
7. Poetry and Tyranny: The Case of Benito Mussolini 37
8. Joseph Stalin: “Over This Land” (1895) 60
9. Stalin’s Writing: From the Romantic Poetry of the Future to the Socialist Realist Prose of the Past 61
10. Adolf Hitler: Excerpt from Mein Kampf (1924) 130
11. Ideology in Execution: On Hitler’s Mein Kampf 131
12. Kim Il-sung: “Poem Dedicated to Comrade Kim Jong-il on His 50th Birthday” (1992) 156
13. Dead Father’s Living Body: Kim Il-sung’s Seed Theory and North Korean Arts 157
14. Mao Zedong: “Snow” (1936) 168
15. Mao Zedong’s Poetry: Form as Statement 169
16. Muammar al-Gaddafi: Excerpt from “Escape to Hell” (1993) 188
17. A Poor Despot Descends to Hell: On the Writing and Thinking Styles of Muammar al-Gaddafi 189
18. Saddam Hussein: “Unbind It” (2007) 218
19. The Principle of Single-Handed Tyranny: On Saddam Hussein’s Literary Works 219
20. Saparmyrat Niyazov: “You Are Turkmen” (2001) 232
21. Saparmyrat Niyazov’s Ruhnama: The Invention of Turkmenistan 233
22. Radovan Karadžić: “Sarajevo” (1971) 250
23. “Nothing Is Forbidden in My Faith”: The Metamorphoses of Radovan Karadžić 251
24. List of Contributors 261