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heathicusmaximus's review against another edition
3.0
This book about the thoughts, tendencies, and extreme acts of dictators and wannabe dictator Donald Trump. As far as trends in narcissistic individuals and historical analyses focusing on narcissism in a half dozen deposed dictators, it's not too shabby.
I don't think the author recognizes the importance of the electoral college or he does and just refers to the majority/minority as a fact. I inferred that he didn't like that Trump was elected because it wasn't popular. Regardless, his judgments of his public character and obnoxious Twitter feeds are accurate. His comparisons of Trump to others are eye-opening, and the contrasts are interesting.
His later chapters seem a bit rushed through or incomplete with a fair amount of speculation and conjecture. There were also spelling errors and even wrong words, especially in these latter parts. He quotes Jerrold Post more than other authors and often redescribes him and others as if they weren't introduced before. Haycock also includes phrases like "studies show" and doesn't list the studies in footnotes nor in the bibliography. You can still get the gist if you can power through the imperfections.
If you're interested in how one person can rise out of the 1% who have strong narcissistic tendencies, this book is a good start.
I don't think the author recognizes the importance of the electoral college or he does and just refers to the majority/minority as a fact. I inferred that he didn't like that Trump was elected because it wasn't popular. Regardless, his judgments of his public character and obnoxious Twitter feeds are accurate. His comparisons of Trump to others are eye-opening, and the contrasts are interesting.
His later chapters seem a bit rushed through or incomplete with a fair amount of speculation and conjecture. There were also spelling errors and even wrong words, especially in these latter parts. He quotes Jerrold Post more than other authors and often redescribes him and others as if they weren't introduced before. Haycock also includes phrases like "studies show" and doesn't list the studies in footnotes nor in the bibliography. You can still get the gist if you can power through the imperfections.
If you're interested in how one person can rise out of the 1% who have strong narcissistic tendencies, this book is a good start.
steviewonder's review against another edition
Didn't really feel like reading about hitler 😌
csh2424's review against another edition
3.0
This was a good book. I found a lot of the content to be "common sense", but it is still valuable to see it discussed in a well-researched manner. It is captivating for those interested in the specific topic, that being (abnormal) psychology in a historical context, and intensely boring for those who are not. If you're intrigued by the front cover, it is a worthwhile read, but don't force it and turn yourself off nonfiction as a genre.
citybound13's review against another edition
2.0
I started out really enjoying this book but, by the end of it, I was annoyed. It was very very repetitious. It was also full of typos. Some of the psychological principles in the book were not explained or used correctly. The book could have easily been shortened by 50-100 pages without repetitions. The author isn’t a psychologist, he’s a medical/science writer that applied and interpreted the work of other psychologists and used that to look at different historical dictators. I think the publishing was rushed because of Donald Trump’s presidency. Its called “sexy” psychology because it is a rather surface level intellectual discourse on a popular subject with little to add to the field. Maybe this is a good book for the average reader(but even they would catch on to the repetitiveness), but not a psychologist.
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