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Children of Monsters: An Inquiry into the Sons and Daughters of Dictators Hardcover – September 22, 2015

by Jay Nordlinger (Author)
4.1 out of 5 stars 178 ratings
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What’s it like to be the son or daughter of a dictator? A monster on the Stalin level? What’s it like to bear a name synonymous with oppression, terror, and evil?

Jay Nordlinger set out to answer that question, and does so in this book. He surveys 20 dictators in all. They are the worst of the worst: Stalin, Mao, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, and so on. The book is not about them, really, though of course they figure in it. It’s about their children.

Some of them are absolute loyalists. They admire, revere, or worship their father. Some of them actually succeed their father as dictator—as in North Korea, Syria, and Haiti. Some of them have doubts. A couple of them become full-blown dissenters, even defectors. A few of the daughters have the experience of having their husband killed by their father. Most of these children are rocked by war, prison, exile, or other upheaval.

Obviously, the children have things in common. But they are also individuals, making of life what they can. The main thing they have in common is this: They have been dealt a very, very unusual hand.

What would you do, if you were the offspring of an infamous dictator, who lords it over your country?

An early reader of this book said, “There’s an opera on every page”: a drama, a tragedy (or even a comedy). Another reader said he had read the chapter on Bokassa “with my eyes on stalks.”

Meet these characters for yourself. Marvel, shudder, and ponder.
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  1. Print length
    336 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Encounter Books
  4. Publication date
    September 22, 2015
  5. Dimensions
    6.5 x 1 x 9.5 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1594038155
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1594038150
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Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jay Nordlinger is a senior editor of "National Review." He writes about a variety of subjects, including politics, foreign affairs, and the arts. He is music critic for "The New Criterion" and "City Arts" (New York), as well as for NR. He has won awards for his work on human rights, in particular. Some 100 pieces are gathered in "Here, There & Everywhere: Collected Writings of Jay Nordlinger." A native Michigander, the author lives in New York.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Encounter Books
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 22, 2015
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1594038155
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1594038150
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.2 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1 x 9.5 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 out of 5 stars 178 ratings

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Jay Nordlinger

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4.1 out of 5 stars
178 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the book fascinating and entertaining, praising its engaging writing style and candid approach. They describe it as a quick read. The scholarly content receives mixed reviews, with one customer noting it covers a century of history while another finds it not very well researched.

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36 customers mention "Reading quality"36 positive0 negative

Customers find the book fascinating and entertaining, praising its storytelling and informative approach to exploring the lives of children of dictators.

"...A thoroughly fast-paced and enjoyable (despite the topic) read, I found that after finishing it, I had abandoned my usual practice of highlighting..." Read more

"...This is a fast-reading book but fascinating and though-provoking...." Read more

"...At times it was to folky, all in all a good and interesting book." Read more

"...I highly recommend this book not just for the fascinating stories and histories but also as a teachable book on the corruption of political systems..." Read more

10 customers mention "Readability"7 positive3 negative

Customers find the book to be a quick and interesting read, with one customer describing it as fast-paced.

"...A thoroughly fast-paced and enjoyable (despite the topic) read, I found that after finishing it, I had abandoned my usual practice of highlighting..." Read more

"...This is a fast-reading book but fascinating and though-provoking...." Read more

"Interesting but a little boring toward the end. Didn't care much for the African dictators." Read more

"A quick read, that should be edited. At times it was to folky, all in all a good and interesting book." Read more

9 customers mention "Writing style"9 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the writing style of the book, describing it as engaging and candid.

"...He does not write uninteresting stuff. I first ran across his work in National Review...." Read more

"...The writing reflects an easy conversational style - story telling at it's best...." Read more

"...He writes in an engaging style. He avoids criticizing the children for what their parents did, but does bring out their own shortcomings." Read more

"Jay is a captivating writer in his columns for various publications and the same is true for this book...." Read more

7 customers mention "Scholarly content"3 positive4 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the scholarly content of the book, with some appreciating how it covers a century of history, while others criticize its lack of research and analysis.

"...The book doesn't analyze, judge or offer reasons into the profound psychological issues each child might have...." Read more

"...They cover over a century of history, and span the globe. The stories are quite diverse, but also have much commonality...." Read more

"...The book fails in its central hypothesis due to what we call in research medicine - research subject heterogeneity...." Read more

"A very interesting book. Brings up many issues of history and character that need exploring." Read more

This Book is an Avalanche of Needless Commas, Dashes, Colons (and Parentheses)
1 out of 5 stars
This Book is an Avalanche of Needless Commas, Dashes, Colons (and Parentheses)
How much needless punctuation ​can one book handle? This book answers that question and makes reading it pure torture. Here are a few examples taken just from the first three pages of this insipidly written book: “Actually, it was his mother who claimed that he was Hitler’s son, and he came to believe it, strongly. “ “One of his women, in a sense, was his niece, Geli Raubal — daughter of his sister, or half-sister, Angela.” “He enjoyed squirreling her around, and he grew possessive of her, attached to her.“ “In September 1931, she was found dead in his apartment, while he was away.” “For about 20 years, he denied, in himself, what his mother had told him.” “Mussolini had five children, officially.​"​ Get the idea? Nearly every sentence starts and stops​ ​​with more jerks than fifth-grader driving a car for the first time. And the author is a senior editor of the National Review!​!​! For Shame!!! I've added one photo -- a small paragraph to offer further illustration. I didn't search for this paragraph. I simply opened the book to a random page and pointed to a random paragraph and there it was in all it's awfulness.
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Top reviews from the United States

  • Ron K
    5.0 out of 5 stars Children of Monsters are not Necessarily Monsters
    Reviewed in the United States on November 29, 2015
    Verified Purchase
    I read this book because of the author, Jay Nordlinger. He does not write uninteresting stuff. I first ran across his work in National Review. This caused me to establish an email folder where I store writings he shares through blogs and emails. Anything he writes will be from a fresh approach and will incorporate a subtle and somewhat cutting sense of humor. An author that writes of the Nobel Peace Prize also writing a book with a title like Child of monsters at first inspired me to download the free sample from Amazon. Then I couldn’t resist buying the book.

    Nordlinger begins by writing that this is not a book about the original monsters, the dictators themselves. While they must be mentioned, they are dead. The offspring are important for a few reasons. Where are they now? What are they doing? Do their current activities serve as a possible springboard for the resurgence of policies of the original dictators? Have the children decided to live in as much as obscurity as possible? Are the children defensive about their parents lingering reputation? Are they trying to make amends or apologies for their parents?

    All of these questions are addressed by Nordlinger. Not necessarily answered, but addressed with researched information from primary and secondary sources. The 20 chapter titles are each the name of a dictator. The index with hyperlinked page numbers allows the reader to explore the overlaps in the lives of several of the dictators such as Hitler-Mussolini, Hitler-Franco, and Hitler-Stalin.

    A thoroughly fast-paced and enjoyable (despite the topic) read, I found that after finishing it, I had abandoned my usual practice of highlighting what I considered important points. That is why I liked the inclusion of an index.
    13 people found this helpful
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  • Narut Ujnat
    4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating subject. Good read though paltry discussion of you want more..
    Reviewed in the United States on April 30, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    I saw the author discussing this subject of the children of dictators on C-Span and I was fascinated by the details of some of history's most repelleant human beings. What effect does the father's madness have on the children? And somehow

    The author takes the most notorious dictators and runs with it. This is not a detailed in-depth study, but rather short studies in the children. The book doesn't analyze, judge or offer reasons into the profound psychological issues each child might have. Rather, we get sketches of many dictators, most of whom are well-known and some more obscure (African dictators primarily are more obscure).

    I loved the extended chapter on Stalin because Stalin was the archetype of the brutal dictator and because his daughter ended up in the United States (as did Khrushchev's son actually). But so much of this book really shows the incredible contradiction of dictator's somehow being family leaders with varying degrees of paranoia, violence and weirdness.

    This is a fast-reading book but fascinating and though-provoking. The book is more akin to reading through sketches of these dictators and does not delve deeply the motivations of history. In fact, Nordlinger assumes a certain degree of knowledge which means for some (and probably younger) readers, there will be a bot of a learning curve to understand. On the other hand, I was so taken by the Stalin chapter I ended up buying both Simon Monitfiiore books on Stalin (In the Court of the Red Czar and Young Stalin ).

    Very good reading.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Fiona Chalom
    3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting quick read
    Reviewed in the United States on November 6, 2015
    Verified Purchase
    A quick read, that should be edited. At times it was to folky, all in all a
    good and interesting book.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • MER
    5.0 out of 5 stars I highly recommend this book not just for the fascinating stories and ...
    Reviewed in the United States on October 10, 2015
    Verified Purchase
    This was a really interesting book looking at the dictators of the 20th and 21st century with emphasis on their children and how they turned out. I found it fascinating that most if not all of the dictators and their children fall into the maxim "absolute power corrupts absolutely". Very rarely did any of the children "escape" the corruption, greed or sins of their fathers. I was also saddened to see how many of the totalitarian despots escaped justice and were actually aided by other corrupt regimes. Most of the children excuse and even speak with pride of their despotic fathers. A sort of Stockholm syndrome for kids I guess.

    I highly recommend this book not just for the fascinating stories and histories but also as a teachable book on the corruption of political systems like Communism and Fascism. It really hits home to the importance of individual liberties and constitutional rights.
    31 people found this helpful
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  • Alpha
    4.0 out of 5 stars In insight to an interesting topic, but with a very western view
    Reviewed in the United States on February 21, 2023
    Verified Purchase
    The topic is interesting but one can feel that the writer did pick certain points and examples that strengthen his overall argument. Being a non-western reader, I think that the writer's stance is very western, which shallowed an otherwise interesting insight to a largely overlooked aspect of the tragedies of multiple nations when we look at the topic on the larger scale.

    Not a bad casual read though.
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  • ancientremedy
    2.0 out of 5 stars A compendium of individual histories
    Reviewed in the United States on August 21, 2019
    Verified Purchase
    I think I got through maybe two chapters, my wife, the same or less. These included discussion of a child that Hitler may or may not have fathered, and Mussolini's children. In the case of Mussolini, it was just a factual (presumably) history of their lives. By the time I finished that much, I didn't see myself getting any sort of insight into these people. Just another bunch of dysfunctional families.
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  • Ralph Osgood
    5.0 out of 5 stars Fatherhood and the Dictator
    Reviewed in the United States on July 29, 2018
    Verified Purchase
    A fascinating study - part banality of evil, part clinical study of progeny who have, shall we say, something in common. The writing reflects an easy conversational style - story telling at it's best. (Indeed, I have had the privilege of hearing the author speak on this topic). Some of the stories are more famous than others, but reading the set together was very satisfying, though obviously disturbingly so.
    One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • MFE
    4.0 out of 5 stars interesting - good choice of dictators characters
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 10, 2015
    Verified Purchase
    Well written, lots of information, interesting - good choice of dictators characters. If you need a quick excurse in this kind of our bleak history this book is a good pick.
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  • Dr. April
    5.0 out of 5 stars Great book if you love history and psychology
    Reviewed in Germany on April 11, 2021
    Verified Purchase
    I enjoy this book. I love the history and trying to understand how trauma is passed down to other family members. It’s worth the money.
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