Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #26425 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 144 pages

From Publishers Weekly
This slim satirical volume purports to map the road to world (or at least great) power from childhood to the grave. Send-ups of everything abound, from pop psychology questionnaires such as "Have You Got What It Takes?" and lists of "Career Paths" (salesman being ideal, since it teaches how to lie with a straight face). After advising on how to seize power, by force or fraud, the tips then cover designing a national flag, managing money while gaining as little of it as possible honestly and arranging your love life so that it enhances your respectability. (This means that your wives and mistresses never meet.) There is even a guide for retirement, should one live so long. The historical snippets have much the same tone, although the portrayals of kids torturing animals to prepare for tyranny and the distinctly Third World flavor of the dictators may not strike everyone as funny. Others may more mildly object to bracketing Elizabeth I of England with Attila the Hun and the Bertelsmann conglomerate with the Mongols. The latter is an insider nod to de Guillaume's alter ego, unacknowledged in the text or on the jacket copy: when not aspiring to thrones, de Guillaume is called Andrew Wilkins, and serves as publisher of Australian Bookseller & Publisher.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
"A comical dig at global politics." -- Razor

"From Frederick the Great to Adolph Hitler . . . tips that help you decide if you really want this sort of career." -- Associated Press

"Has much advice to impart . . . pays homage to historical conquistadors . . . also provides dictator dating tips." -- New York Daily News

"How to handle all the wealth, sex, and paranoia that comes with absolute power." -- The Salt Lake Tribune April, 2003

"How to handle all the wealth, sex, and paranoia that comes with absolute power..." -- The Salt Lake Tribune, April 2003. "Tongue only slightly in cheek... he looks to famous despots of history..." -- The Middletown Journal. "Has much advice to impart... pays homage to historical conquistadors... also provides dictator dating tips..." -- New York Daily News.

"Tips that can help you decide if you really want this sort of career." -- Mount Pleasant Daily Tribune

"Tongue only slightly in cheek . . . he looks to famous despots of history." -- The Middletown Journal

"Tongue only slightly in cheek." -- Daily Sentinel

About the Author
André de Guillaume attended the Royal Military College at Sandhurst in England, where he learned to march with authority, tell people what to do, and appreciate fine wines. His attempted coup in the Cashman Islands was foiled, but his dictatorship tendencies remain untarnished.

Customer Reviews

Hilarious
This book shows you how to climb your way up to the top and RULE
how to rule your own country and be a dictator
gives alot of examples from dictators throughout history and explains if they did it so can you
funny and hilarious
highly recommended

Funny but...
"How to rule the World" is a very funny book with excelent quotations and historic references that contributes to deliver an enviroment of "seriousness". The only problem with the book is its male orientation. It's not written for women in spite of their possibilities to become an excellent dictator.

More informational than one would think
Although the book is very silly and even facetious at times, it's based on a lot of really interesting historical figures. The illustrations make the book.