Just a couple years ago, my aunt brought me the book "History Will Absolve Me" from her most recent trip to Cuba. Needless to say this sucked me into a genre- a genre that doesn't really exist out loud, but certainly has its influence. I'm talking of course about dictator literature. When you fist read about dictator literature there are four books that instantly come to mind. First is Hitler's "Mein Kompf"- the book that set the fatherland ideology that fueled the rise of Nazi Germany. Second is Chairman Mao Zedong's "Little Red Book"- which set in motion his version of Chinese communism as well as the precedent of dictator books. Then of course Saparmyrat Turkmenbasy's "Ruhnama"- the book that led everyday life in Turkmenistan, including universities and the drivers tests. Finally is Muammar Gaddafi's "Little Green Book"- the book that led Libya as an obvious play on Mao's title.
These are the books that everyone speaks of though. The thing that bothers me though, is these leaders are not the only dictators that wrote books- just the ones with countries and territory. In my further research, I have found solace in finding authoritarian writing in terrorists as well, which could be considered just as crazy of militant leaders. Though Osama bin Laden lacked the determination to write an entire book, his right hand man Ayman al-Zawahiri wrote a book called "Knights Under the Prophet's Banner" and the leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Anwar al-Awlaki wrote "Allah is Preparing Us for Victory." Both of which are relatively short, but should be considered the writing of insane authoritarians none the less. So if your craving reading the world's most hated people's written words- dig right in!
Edit: Recently translated to English is scarcely talked about book, "Masoneria" written by Francisco Franco, the dictator of Spain. Written under the name "Jakim Boor" Franco wrote the book as a series of articles for the Spanish magazine Arriba and details his suspicion of freemasonry. He later became convinced that every copy of the book was bought up by the freemasons to prevent it from getting out.
