The relationship between belief and behavior is a subject that deserves the continued attention of social scientists, psychologists, and historians. It is also a matter that has concerned intellectuals pursuing authenticity. While it is difficult to propose satisfactory generalizations about the determinants of this relationship, sociologists and many historians are inclined to believe that the environment, or situations, matter far more than beliefs in shaping and influencing political (and other) behavior. One of the messages of Daniel Kalder’s Infernal Library is that strident, convoluted, mendacious, and hate-filled writings can have considerable impact: “This is the danger of dictator books: they hide in plain sight, and their sheer awfulness makes it impossible to believe in their power to infiltrate and transform brains until it is much too late.”

This is a highly readable, well written, and at times entertaining study, benefitting from the author’s lively style, sense of humor, and impressive knowledge of the subject. He offers in one medium-sized volume a handy summary of the careers, cults, and ideas of the major dictators of the past and present centuries, as well as information about a few colorful minor figures of whom most readers have never heard. To accomplish this, he undertook a praiseworthy and painful immersion into many barely readable books, including those of the lesser figures, such as the authoritarian leaders of what used to be parts of the Soviet Union—Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and others—places where “the ideal of leader-genius persisted, as did the compulsion to demonstrate