"A nonfiction account of some of the deadliest dictators in modern history"-- What makes a country fall to a dictator? How to authoritarian leaders acquire their powers? Davis profiles five of the most notoriously ruthless dictators in history. The examines their personal lives and historical periods, and shows how these factors shaped the leaders they'd become. -- adapted from jacket

"The complete history of democracy, its champions, and its detractors-from the assemblies of ancient Mesopotamia to present perils"--

"Today, democracy is the world's only broadly accepted political system, and yet it has become synonymous with disappointment and crisis. How did it come to this? In [this book], James Miller, author of the classic history of 1960s protest "Democracy Is in the Streets", offers a lively, surprising, and urgent history of the democratic idea from its first stirrings to the present."--Dust jacket.

"Throughout western history, the societies that have made the greatest contributions to the spread of freedom have created iconic works of art to celebrate their achievements. Yet despite the enduring appeal of works from the Parthenon to Michelangelo's David to Picasso's Guernica, histories of both art and democracy have ignored this phenomenon. Millions have admired the works of art covered in this book but relatively few know why they were commissioned,...

"From the former secretary of state and bestselling author -- a sweeping look at the global struggle for democracy and why America must continue to support the cause of human freedom. From the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union to the ongoing struggle for human rights in the Middle East, Condoleezza Rice has served on the front lines of history. As a child, she was an eyewitness to a third awakening of freedom, when her hometown...

"Without drastic adjustment, this system cannot last much longer," writes Van Reybrouck. "If you look at the decline in voter turnout and party membership, and at the way politicians are held in contempt, if you look at how difficult it is to form governments, how little they can do and how harshly they are punished for it, if you look at how quickly populism, technocracy and anti-parliamentarianism are rising, if you look at how more and more citizens...

"The second volume of the bestselling landmark work on the history of the modern state Writing in The Wall Street Journal, David Gress called Francis Fukuyama's Origins of Political Order "magisterial in its learning and admirably immodest in its ambition." In The New York Times Book Review, Michael Lind described the book as "a major achievement by one of the leading public intellectuals of our time." And in The Washington Post, Gerard DeGrott exclaimed...