Talk of the Devil: Encounters With Seven Dictators

Rating:
Summary: Jaruzelski in bad company
Review: I would highly recommend "Talk of the Devil" to anyone with an interest in politics and/or history. I loved reading the book and read it almost non-stop from beginning to end. However, I strongly believe that General Jaruzelski does not belong in this book. General Jaruzelski is guilty of having declared martial law in 1981, which may or may have not blocked a Soviet invasion of Poland, and he may or may not share guilt in the shooting of 44 demonstrators in 1970 when he was defense minister. During the interview, in a house provided by the Polish government drinking vodka from plastic cups, Jaruzelski directly addressed these issues. Whereas the others in the book avoided saying they did anything wrong. The magnitude of Jaruzelski's crimes pale in comparison to others in the book; Mengistu Haile-Mariam who Amnesty International estimates killed 500,000 Ethiopians, Jean-Claude Duvalier who stole $900 million from the Haitian people, Idi Amin-Dada who had an unfaithful mistress hatched to pieces then had her limbs sewn back on backwards and showed her to people to scare them into being loyal, and Jean-Bedel Bokassa who alleged to have killed and eaten his political opponents! But regardless of his inclusion in the book it gets a 4 star rating from me.

Rating:
Summary: Deceptive packaging
Review: This book is not as represented. Ninety percent of it is historical detail you can get from other sources, fluffed into thin, uninteresting interviews, some of which hardly merit the term. Combine this with a flat-footed, self-conscious, second-rate translation, and it's an agonizing read, filled even with annoying sentence fragments. Like this. The publisher clearly told Orizio to fill in the empty parts so they could have a book to sell. Don't waste your time. Read TIME instead; it's much more compelling.

Rating:
Summary: Where Are They Now?
Review: Those seeking detailed biographies of the dictators Italian journalist Orizio tracks down, or penetrating histories and analyses of the years of their respective rule should turn elsewhere, as this is not the book for them. Instead, this is an oddly compelling mix of investigatory reportage and "Where Are They Now?" for readers with an interest in international events. Anyone looking for rigor and meticulous detail will not be pleased with the short chapters such as those on Idi Amin or Bokassa, in which Orizio spends more time recounting his efforts to find his quarry than actually talking to them. This is not necessarily a bad thing though, for the sad truth of the book is that these dictators may have come from a range of cultural and economic backgrounds, but they all end up saying the same thing.

In his preface, Orizio writes that "I deliberately chose those who had fallen from power in disgrace, because those who fall on their feet tend not to examine their own conscience." However, the cliché of the banality of evil fulfills itself, as every single interviewee has the same lies, excuses, and delusions as the others (except for Bokassa, who insists the Pope secretly proclaimed him the 13th Apostle). Unrepentence is rife, as the interviewees trot out the same old chestnuts:"history will vindicate me", "the crimes I'm accused of are all lies perpetrated by my enemies", "my country was better off under me, " "I love my people/country." Clearly none of them have any interest in or incentive for honest examination of their rule, indeed, at this point belief in their own mythology is probably an ingrained psychological self-defense mechanism.

Orizio does present a brief sketch of each dictator's country, and of the history of their rule. We find that hand in hand with the psychological similarity is a methodological similarity in rule. Rise to power based on ideology (or voodoo in the case of Baby Doc), consolidation of power via construction of cult of personality enforced by secret police, leading to corruption, cronyism, and systematic transfer of national wealth to Swiss bank accounts. The odd man out in all this is General Jaruzelski, who instituted martial law in Poland in 1981, and whose hands are vastly less bloody than those of the six others in the book. Indeed, one is almost tempted into feeling sorry for him, lumped in with the half-dozen Marxists, Maoists, Ultranationalists, and nut cases who ruined their countries. The book is an excellent introduction to some creepy, and yes, evil, figures from the recent past. Mengistu, for example, is completely forgotten in the U.S., and the distinctly creepy Hoxha couple of Albania are totally unknown.