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Start giftingStrongmen
Ruth Ben-Ghiat is the expert on the "strongman" playbook employed by authoritarian demagogues from Mussolini to Putin. In Strongmen, she lays bare the blueprint these leaders have followed over the past 100 years, and empowers us to recognize, resist, and prevent their disastrous rule in the future.
For ours is the age of authoritarian rulers: self-proclaimed saviors of the nation who evade accountability while robbing their people of truth, treasure, and the protections of democracy. They promise law and order, then legitimize lawbreaking by financial, sexual, and other predators. They use propaganda, corruption, and violence to stay in power.
Vladimir Putin and Mobutu Sese Seko's kleptocracies, Benito Mussolini and Muammar Gaddafi's systems of sexual exploitation, and Silvio Berlusconi and Donald Trump's relentless misinformation: all show how authoritarian rule, far from ensuring stability, is marked by destructive chaos.
Recounting the acts of solidarity and dignity that have undone strongmen over the past 100 years, Ben-Ghiat makes vividly clear that only by seeing the strongman for what he isโand by valuing one another as he is unable to doโcan we stop him, now and in the future.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat is an internationally acclaimed historian, speaker, and political commentator for the Atlantic, CNN, the Washington Post, and other publications. She is a professor of history and Italian studies at New York University and lives in New York City.
Chloe Cannon is a non-union multi-genre audiobook narrator living in the Mid-Hudson Valley region of New York. Audiobook narration seized her interest when reading aloud to local seniors, who informed her that her reading sounded "just like their audiobooks!" Since then, she has narrated titles in a variety of genres, including young adult, sci-fi/fantasy, romance, self-help, thriller/suspense, sports memoir, and biography, with a special affinity for young adult/middle grade works. Her "shapeshifting" voice provides depth to each character within a story. AudioFile magazine has reviewed her narration: "Cannon sounds so authentic that it's impossible not to be moved."