Why read Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes?

Book cover of Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes

Book description

In this classic work, noted political sociologist Juan Linz provides an unparalleled study of the nature of nondemocratic regimes.

Linz's seminal analysis develops the fundamental distinction between totalitarian and authoritarian systems. It also presents a pathbreaking discussion of the personalistic, lawless, nonideological type of authoritarian rule that he calls (following…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Archie Brown

Author

Juan Linz (1926-2013) was one of the most insightful political analysts of the past hundred years. He was especially noted for his studies of how democracies can degenerate into authoritarianism and on the characteristics and types of authoritarian and totalitarian rule. The greater part of this work first appeared in 1975 (in a multi-volume Handbook of Political Science), but with its publication as a separate book a quarter of a century later, Linz added almost fifty pages of valuable ‘Further Reflections’. Authoritarian systems embrace a wide variety of non-democratic polities, among them absolute monarchy, military dictatorship, ‘sultanistic’ regimes, and theocracies.…

From Archie's list on authoritarianism and totalitarianism.