DICTATORS By Jacques Bainville
This book (Cape, Jos. 6d:)-,purports to be a survey of dictatorships from Solon to Hitler, presenting .art analysis' of their nature and of the reasons for their occuirence. It includes ch diverse figures as Pericles, •Sulla and Marius (omitting Augustus, surely .ran admirable example of a veiled dictator- ship), Louis XIV, Napoleon III, and - the inevitable Hitler. The chapter on Hider adds nothing to what has • already been said about him his rise, his Weltanschaung. The chapters On the dictatorships of the ancient world are frequently remarkable for their distortion and omission of facts. For -example it is interesting to think of Pisistratils "grinding down the upper classes in order to defray the national expense," to hear that "the prosperity of the body-politic had no interest for him." The central section on the South American States is better, but the chapter on Cromwell contains unquali- fied assertions about his motives and - actions which. are .culpably. rash-. And fa book of this length was hardly necessary
for the promulgation of such novel conclusions as those with which it ends, that governments of both- Right and Left may be dictatorial in character, and that though no generalisations can be made about the origins of dictatorships, they usually arise as a function of insur- gence either against democracy or, on the other hand, in defence of it.
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