A multi-billionaire Senator has believed for years that the United States is slowly disintegrating, due to politicians caring more about getting re-elected than about their country. Wisconsin Senator Stevens feels that political correctness has run amok and that people have swallowed the lie that government can solve all problems. American stature worldwide has shrunk to the extent that the country is no longer considered a military threat or a reliable partner. The very existence of the once mighty and respected country is being threatened. The senator uses his vast wealth and powerful friends to get others sympathetic to his ideals elected into office. Due to the tremendous upheaval caused by the threat of Muslim extremism, Senator Stevens uses the threat to become president. When the Muslims actually do start a reign of terror, he cancels all elections and becomes The First American Dictator.

Could it possibly happen?After a polarizing and scandal-plagued presidency, a new American president is swept into office by a large majority. M. Spencer Howell, a popular governor of impeccable character and credentials, assumes the presidency with party majorities in Congress, and proceeds to transform America back to his vision of the founders' ideal.Howell's vision drives his administration to dramatic changes in law and policy, addressing crime, immigration, education, and other issues in a forthright assault on his predecessor's record. With enormous popularity among the American people, supermajorities in both houses of Congress, and new appointees to the Supreme Court, President Howell has a free hand to repair a broken American culture and society.Voices inside and outside the government have vague misgivings about the speed and direction of Howell's policies, and the creation of a new Militia answerable to the President's team. This large, well-trained force appears benign and quickly wins over the American public with courtesy and aplomb.But who can argue with a president who is so obviously sincere? Howell is a military veteran, a married man about whom his election opponents could not find the slightest flaw in judgment or character. If anyone can be trusted with the near absolute power created by his presidency, it's M. Spencer Howell.About his administration, however, some questions arise and, stubbornly, refuse to go away, at least in the minds of some of Howell's most loyal staffers. His vice president appears to head a cadre of ex-military men and spies, and there are whispers that not everything he does is being communicated to the President. And then there is the new and terrifying weapon, perfected at the beginning of Howell's term. The new president sees it as the ultimate deterrent, a force for good, but others see the potential for the most devastating first strike weapon the world has ever seen. This story chronicles the rise to power of a man beyond reproach, and serves as a cautionary tale to all who believe power cannot corrupt.

Focusing on portrayals of Mussolini's Italy, Hitler's Germany, and Stalin's Russia in U.S. films, magazine and newspaper articles, books, plays, speeches, and other texts, Benjamin Alpers traces changing American understandings of dictatorship from the la

One man was tongue-tied and awkward around women, in many ways a mama's boy at heart, although his reputation for thuggery was well earned. The other was a playboy, full of easy charm and ready jokes, his appetite for high living a matter of public record. One man tolerated gangsters and bootleggers as long as they paid their dues to his organization. The other was effectively a gangster himself, so crooked that he hosted a national gathering of America's most ruthless killers. One man never drank alcohol. The other, from all evidence, seldom drank anything else. American Dictators is the dual biography of two of America’s greatest political bosses: Frank Hague and Enoch “Nucky” Johnson. Packed with compelling information and written in an informal, sometimes humorous style, the book shows Hague and Johnson at the peak of their power and the strength of their political machines during the years of Prohibition and the Great Depression. Steven Hart compares how both men used their influence to benefit and punish the local citizenry, amass huge personal fortunes, and sometimes collaborate to trounce their enemies. Similar in their ruthlessness, both men were very different in appearance and temperament. Hague, the mayor of Jersey City, intimidated presidents and wielded unchallenged power for three decades. He never drank and was happily married to his wife for decades. He also allowed gangsters to run bootlegging and illegal gambling operations as long as they paid protection money. Johnson, the political boss of Atlantic City, and the inspiration for the hit HBO series Boardwalk Empire, presided over corruption as well, but for a shorter period of time. He was notorious for his decadent lifestyle. Essentially a gangster himself, Johnson hosted the infamous Atlantic City conference that fostered the growth of organized crime. Both Hague and Johnson shrewdly integrated otherwise disenfranchised groups into their machines and gave them a stake in political power. Yet each failed to adapt to changing demographics and circumstances. In American Dictators, Hart paints a balanced portrait of their accomplishments and their failures.

A “compelling and shocking account” of a brutal campaign of repression in Latin America, based on interviews and previously secret documents (The Miami Herald). Throughout the 1970s, six Latin American governments, led by Chile, formed a military alliance called Operation Condor to carry out kidnappings, torture, and political assassinations across three continents. It was an early “war on terror” initially encouraged by the CIA—which later backfired on the United States. Hailed by Foreign Affairs as “remarkable” and “a major contribution to the historical record,” The Condor Years uncovers the unsettling facts about the secret US relationship with the dictators who created this terrorist organization. Written by award-winning journalist John Dinges and updated to include later developments in the prosecution of Pinochet, the book is a chilling yet dispassionately told history of one of Latin America’s darkest eras. Dinges, himself interrogated in a Chilean torture camp, interviewed participants on both sides and examined thousands of previously secret documents to take the reader inside this underground world of military operatives and diplomats, right-wing spies and left-wing revolutionaries. “Scrupulous, well-documented.” —The Washington Post “Nobody knows what went wrong inside Chile like John Dinges.” —Seymour Hersh

The United States continues to proclaim its support for democracy and its opposition to tyranny, but American presidents often have supported dictators who have allied themselves with the United States. This book illustrates the chronic dilemmas inherent in US dealings with dictators under conditions of uncertainty and moral ambiguity. Dealing with Dictators offers in-depth analysis of six cases: the United States and China, 1945-1948; UN intervention in the Congo, 1960-1965; the overthrow of the Shah of Iran; US relations with the Somoza regime in Nicaragua; the fall of Marcos in the Philippines; and US policy toward Iraq, 1988-1990. The authors' fascinating and revealing accounts shed new light on critical episodes in US foreign policy and provide a basis for understanding the dilemmas that US decision makers confronted. The chapters do not focus on whether US leaders made the "right" or "wrong" decisions, but instead seek to deepen our understanding of how uncertainty permeated the process and whether decision makers and their aides asked the right questions. This approach makes the book invaluable to scholars and students of government and history, and to readers interested in the general subject of how intelligence analysis interacts with policymaking.

A serious introduction to the use of nonviolent action to topple dictatorships. Based on the author's study, over a period of forty years, on non-violent methods of demonstration, it was originally published in 1993 in Thailand for distribution among Burmese dissidents.

Focusing on Washington’s early years, Bancroft Prize winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist Robert Middlekauff penetrates his mystique, revealing his all-too-human fears, values, and passions. Rich in psychological detail regarding Washington’s temperament, idiosyncrasies, and experiences, this book shows a self-conscious Washington who grew in confidence and experience as a young soldier, businessman, and Virginia gentleman, and who was transformed into a patriot by the revolutionary ferment of the 1760s and ’70s. Middlekauff makes clear that Washington was at the heart of not just the revolution’s course and outcome but also the success of the nation it produced. This vivid, insightful new account of the formative years that shaped a callow George Washington into an extraordinary leader is an indispensable book for truly understanding one of America’s great figures.

In this dramatic and authoritative account, the author shows how Franklin Delano Roosevelt used his famous "fear itself" speech and the first 100 days in office to lift the country from despair and paralysis and transform the American presidency.

Why do some autocratic leaders pursue aggressive or expansionist foreign policies, while others are much more cautious in their use of military force? The first book to focus systematically on the foreign policy of different types of authoritarian regimes, Dictators at War and Peace breaks new ground in our understanding of the international behavior of dictators. Jessica L. P. Weeks explains why certain kinds of regimes are less likely to resort to war than others, why some are more likely to win the wars they start, and why some authoritarian leaders face domestic punishment for foreign policy failures whereas others can weather all but the most serious military defeat. Using novel cross-national data, Weeks looks at various nondemocratic regimes, including those of Saddam Hussein and Joseph Stalin; the Argentine junta at the time of the Falklands War, the military government in Japan before and during World War II, and the North Vietnamese communist regime. She finds that the differences in the conflict behavior of distinct kinds of autocracies are as great as those between democracies and dictatorships. Indeed, some types of autocracies are no more belligerent or reckless than democracies, casting doubt on the common view that democracies are more selective about war than autocracies.