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Product Identifiers
PublisherTortoise Books
ISBN-101948954613
ISBN-139781948954617
eBay Product ID (ePID)22050412133
Product Key Features
Book TitleBefore Evil : Young Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao, and Kim
Number of Pages454 Pages
LanguageEnglish
Publication Year2022
TopicMilitary / World War II, General, Presidents & Heads of State, World, Historical
GenreBiography & Autobiography, History
AuthorBrandon K. Gauthier
FormatTrade Paperback
Dimensions
Item Height1 in
Item Weight22.6 Oz
Item Length9 in
Item Width6 in
Additional Product Features
Intended AudienceTrade
Reviews" Before Evil isn't your average history. Written in a colloquial language. Like listening to an old friend, not a stuffy intellectual. It tells the story of some of history's most reviled men. Dictators and despots. As though they were the dorky teens we all once were. Brandon Gauthier has done a first rate job in dispelling the myth that these tyrants were anything other than human. Same as you and I." -- Steve Anwyll, author of Welfare (Tyrant Books) " Before Evil opens a compellingwindow into the humanity of some of the most tyrannical despots of the modernera. At times poignant, powerful, erudite, and even humorous, it reminds usthat those we consider truly evil are still truly human, and that the linesbetween good and evil are not as simple as we might like to believe." -- MitchellLerner, Professor of History and Director of the East Asian Studies Center atThe Ohio State University "For the past 30 years I have worked as apsychological expert witness in murder cases and visited with children andyouth in war zones around the world. I have struggled, as has Brandon Gauthier,to find a 'human' explanation for the psychological realities of violenceand evil that I have encountered first-hand in prisons and refugee camps. Hisbook is a significant contribution in that morally and emotionally challengingbut necessary task. A fascinating book!" -- James Garbarino, Professor ofHumanistic Psychology, Loyola University Chicago, author of Lost Boys:Why Our Sons Turn Violent and How We Can Save Them "Brandon Gauthier has written apowerful investigation into the myriad influences that created six of the mostevil men in modern history. Before Evil deftly explains instunning detail how Lenin, Hilter, Stalin Mao, Mussolini and Kim slowly turnedfrom unremarkable children into authoritarian adults whose choices affected thecourse of the entire world. By asking readers to grapple with the humanity ofmen who are widely abhorred, Gauthier provides a fresh way to understandwhy these six leaders were able to wield power--and how dictators coulduse those same tactics to rise again." -- Beth Knobel, Associate Professorof Communication and Media Studies , Fordham University
Dewey Edition23
Dewey Decimal321.90922
SynopsisShould we humanize the world's most inhumane leaders? Adolf Hitler. Joseph Stalin. Benito Mussolini. Mao Zedong. Kim Il Sung. Vladimir Lenin. These cruel dictators wrote their names on the pages of history in the blood of countless innocent victims. Yet they themselves were once young people searching for their place in the world, dealing with challenges many of us face--parental authority, education, romance, loss--and doing so in ways that might be uncomfortably familiar. Historian Brandon K. Gauthier has created a fascinating work--epic yet intimate, well-researched but immensely readable, clear-eyed and empathetic--looking at the lives of these six dictators, with a focus on their youths. We watch Lenin's older brother executed at the hands of the Tsar's police--an event that helped radicalize this overachieving high-schooler. We observe Stalin grappling with the death of his young, beautiful wife. We see Hitler's mother mourning the loss of three young children--and determined that her first son to survive infancy would find his place in the world. The purpose isn't to excuse or simply explain these horrible men, but rather to treat them with the empathy they themselves too often lacked. We may prefer to hold such lives at arm's length so as to demonize them at will, but this book reminds us that these monstrous rulers were also human beings--and perhaps more relatable than we'd like., Should we humanize the world's most inhumane leaders? Adolf Hitler. Joseph Stalin. Benito Mussolini. Mao Zedong. Kim Il Sung. Vladimir Lenin. These cruel dictators wrote their names on the pages of history in the blood of countless innocent victims. Yet they themselves were once young people searching for their place in the world, dealing with challenges many of us face-parental authority, education, romance, loss--and doing so in ways that might be uncomfortably familiar. Historian Brandon K. Gauthier has created a fascinating work--epic yet intimate, well-researched but immensely readable, clear-eyed and empathetic--looking at the lives of these six dictators, with a focus on their youths. We watch Lenin's older brother executed at the hands of the Tsar's police--an event that helped radicalize this overachieving high-schooler. We observe Stalin grappling with the death of his young, beautiful wife. We see Hitler's mother mourning the loss of three young children--and determined that her first son to survive infancy would find his place in the world. The purpose isn't to excuse or simply explain these horrible men, but rather to treat them with the empathy they themselves too often lacked. We may prefer to hold such lives at arm's length so as to demonize them at will, but this book reminds us that these monstrous rulers were also human beings--and perhaps more relatable than we'd like.
LC Classification NumberJC495
