A Brotherhood of Tyrants
Having already weighed in on mental health and creativity inThe Key to Genius: Manic Depression and the Creative Life(1988), Hershman and Lieb move on to the mental health of three famous dictators. Napoleon, Hitler, and Stalin all manifested elements of mania and depression from their earliest years, the pair avers. They draw on a variety of literature--some of it well known, some dating from a century or longer ago, some coming from the medical literature--to support their arguments as, presenting their subjects' lives chronologically, they emphasize incidents that fit the manic-depressive pattern. Although some of these events are common knowledge, others are not, and it is the latter that add special weight to the book's thesis. Hershman and Lieb then turn from biographical incidents to concentrate on particular elements of character and personality that serve to underline some of their points. An epilogue, which seems out of place, deals briefly with contemporary mass killers of considerably lesser impact--David Koresh, Jeffrey Dahmer, Jim Jones, and Colin Ferguson.William Beatty