The Great Dictators

Title : The Dictators, Fascist, Communist, Despots, and Tyrants – The Biographies of the Great Dictators of the Modern World

Writer : Jules Archer

Year : 1967

Language : English (translated into Indonesian)

Just like what I’ve written in the previous review, behind any good or bad thing, there are always reasons or a certain background. This book doesn’t only talk about dictators and their regimes, how they conducted their countries and their government, but it also talks about why and how they became dictators and how they fell down from their regimes.

The writer doesn’t put all of the dictators in the world for certain reasons (which I don’t know), but he does put the greatest dictators of the world, just like mentioned in the title. From Lenin and Stalin (the most crucial, I think), to Fransisco Franco and also the former president of my own country, Soekarno. As stated in the title, the book talks much about the life of the greatest dictators: from their childhoods, families, love lives, political lives, their emergence in the dictatorship, their regimes, and of course, their deaths. All dictatorships showed in the book seemed to come up from mostly the childhood memories of the dictators. Their poor lives, sufferings, failures… All those agonies brought the coming-dictators to the understanding of the cruel world. Therefore, they learned Marxism (mostly) and other “wrongly-accepted” theories to be applied in their political lives.

However, being dictators is not always being cruel. Antonio de Oliveira Salazar (from Portugal) and Fidel Castro (Cuba) are the two “good” dictators. They were actually good men with good visions, but they just didn’t want to be disturbed. They “just” didn’t want to surrender their position to other people or opponents.

The writer cleverly and objectively put so many perspectives and points of view in writing the history and mysteries behind it. I really like when he wrote about the World War I and the fact behind that. Even though he eventually praises America as the most democratic country in the world, which can apply democracy very well among other, he can still write and reveal the bad side and the faults of America back in the history. I won’t say that he is very objective (because I don’t know him), but I can say that this book indeed has opened my eyes about the history.

Rating: 3.5

The Godfather

Title : The Godfather
Writer : Mario Puzo
Year : 1969
Language : English (translated into Indonesian)

Everyone must have known about The Godfather, along-time masterpiece written by Italian-descendent American author, Mario Puzo. It was a big hit back in the first-release year with two box office Oscar winners movies following. So, it is undeniable that the story of The Godfather is very famous in America, and in the world. Therefore, I will not talk much about the story.

However, it is still worth while to talk about the core of the story, something which is interesting from the Italian people. The story doesn’t only talk about the life of gangsters (like what I got from Chinese movies series: Young and Dangerous), the conflict, and the family which the each member has to protect. It also talks about how and why those Italian people become gangsters, or mafia, or “mafioso” in Italian. There are always reasons or certain background of being somebody or something, and the Italian people portrayed in the novel have those reasons and background. Well, it indirectly strengthens my belief that behind any good or bad thing, there’s always the “why factor”.

The other interesting thing about the novel is that the author gives many details on the story line, and particularly on each character. The author uses flash-back style to reveal the story but he doesn’t forget to make it in detail so that (I think) every reader of this novel will enjoy the flow of the story while they face a very serious and bloody story. The way Puzo make detailed characters is also amazing. He seems to force me to like and admire every character in front of me, whether it is a bitch, a jerk, a good guy, or an ordinary person. And more importantly, Puzo makes a story for each character so that the readers can deepen the characters well.

Overall, I really like the story despite the fact that it is so patriarchal and tends to undermine and underestimate women and their roles. The core of the story is also so strong that it is just the way the Italian mafia work. However, it is also wrong to think of a mafia-stereotype on Italian people because not all Italians are mafia members.

Rating: 3.5