How Tyrants Fall is a really interesting insight into how autocracies work - and how to dismantle them. Dirsus studies an extensive catalogue of different tyrants over the course of the twentieth century. There is a lot of information, but I always found it engaging and accessible - and refreshingly global rather than just examining the usual European suspects.

It's a thought-provoking read that really got me thinking about the structure of democracy in a different way. Highly recommended for anyone interested in social politics.

Do you want to get rid of your autocratic ruler? Or maybe you're a tyrant who needs to know how to defend yourself from a coup?
I have good news, you can find out everything you need from this book!*

*also applicable to history and sociology nerds and people who like well written non-fiction books (that's me)

On a serious note, this book is everything I would expect from it after seeing the title.
The author explains all the ways the tyrants can be removed from their power using historic examples and good research. There's a lot of information in each chapter. Maybe sometimes even too much information? There were a few times I couldn't get myself to finish the chapter.
But overall I found this book really fascinating and will definitely remember some stories.

Throughout the book, especially from around halfway through, I was getting mixed feelings towards it.

What I liked from this book was that it was, for me at least, easy enough to understand. Granted I have just finished my second year of a history degree and history and politics are interlinked in ways, but as someone who struggles to grasp things in complex ways, I did learn a fair bit from this book and Dirsus does explain things in a way I could understand. Adding onto this point, I do like how Dirsus has used modern day, popular examples to explain concepts. In chapter 4 on page 108, for example, Dirsus mentions how an advantage of contracts where one party agrees to buy an asset on a particular date in the future is volatility, he uses the example of planes and fluctuating kerosene prices. Yes, not many people are going to be interested in kerosene prices, but a lot of people are going to be interested in planes as it is June and people are starting to think about going abroad for their 6 week summer break. Moving on, I also like how most of the general examples used in the book are more modern, i.e. from mid-20th century (with a couple examples, i.e. Stalin and Caligula, being before the 1950s) and are centred around Asia, Africa and the middle east.

However, there were some things I did not enjoy that made me rate the book 3 stars instead of 4 or 5. Firstly, I feel as if the book, especially the idea of tyrants, is male centred. At various points within the book, Dirsus refers to tyrants as male. For example on page 61, it says ‘in democracies, drastic measures, such as committing a patient to a psychiatric hospital, are only administered under tightly defined conditions - usually when a patient is in danger to himself or others.’ Also, on page 129, ‘the attacking army is still far from the palace and the dictator is physically safe from them, but there’s a decent chance that the dictator could now find himself in serious trouble.’ With the sentence from page 129, I would understand if it was on about a specific person but it is not. Also, I feel that chapter 4 does go off on a tangent from the topic of tyrants slightly. Finally, with the use of African countries as examples of tyrants, I do feel that dirsus could be painting African countries in a light where all they seem to do is have a coup every few years.

Overall, this book was a good introduction to tyrants and dictators!