Orem Library

Few mixtures are as toxic as absolute power and insanity. When nothing stands between a leader's delusional whims and seeing them carried out, all sorts of bizarre outcomes are possible. This book will look at the lives of the nine most mentally unbalanced figures in history. Some suffered from genetic disorders that led to schizophrenia, such as French King Charles VI, who thought he was made of glass. Others believed themselves to be God's representatives...

Ruth Ben-Ghiat lays bare the blueprint leaders from Mussolini to Trump have followed over the past 100 years, and empowers us to recognize, resist, and prevent their disastrous rule in the future. Authoritarian rulers promise law and order, then legitimize lawbreaking by financial, sexual, and other predators. They use masculinity as a symbol of strength and a political weapon, and they use propaganda, corruption, and violence to stay in power. Vladimir...

From 1954 until Mao Zedong's death 22 years later. Dr. Li Zhisui was the Chinese ruler's personal physician. For most of these years, Mao was in excellent health; thus he and the doctor had time to discuss political and personal matters. Dr. Li recorded many of these conversations in his diaries, as well as in his memory. In this book, Dr. Li vividly reconstructs his extraordinary time with Chairman Mao.

"They're kings wielding scepters and sitting on thrones, they're presidents and prime ministers leading their nations, or they're CEOs, scientists, sports stars, artists, and others who are changing the world. Welcome to The Book of Kings, where being a regal royal doesn't just mean wearing a crown." -- back cover.

From humble origins in the provinces, Mao Zedong rose to absolute power, unifying with an iron fist a vast country torn apart by years of weak leadership, colonialism, and war. This sharply drawn and insightful account brings to life this modern-day emperor and the tumultuous era that he did so much to shape.

This is an evocation of the woman who married Chairman Mao and fought to succeed him. The unwanted daughter of a concubine, she refused to have her feet bound, ran away to join an opera troupe and eventually met Mao Zedong in the mountains of Yenan.

"To those who don't really know her, Kate Henderson's life must seem perfectly ordinary. Civil servant, wife, parent of two teenagers, daughter of a sick and aging mother . . . But she's also a senior MI6 officer, and right now she is nursing the political equivalent of a nuclear bomb. Kate's mission to bug a Russian oligarch's super-yacht in Istanbul has yielded the startling intelligence that the British Prime Minister has prostate cancer--and that...