In Strongman: The Rise of Five Dictators and The Fall of Democracy, Kenneth C. Davis does a case study looking into lives and “careers” of Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Saddam Hussein. He also looks at the relationship fascism has with democracy and the philosophical origins of both.

Davis is a historian who has written numerous nonfiction books primarily on the topic of, but not limited to, history. They were primarily written for a YA audience, and Strongman (published by Henry Holt & Co) is no different. This book is definitely intended for a high schooler or a precocious middle schooler interested in learning about fascism over the past century, and more importantly – why it’s something to fight against.

It’s at this point that I need to pause and mention that it’s going to be impossible for my own personal politics to not seep through in this article, but not just because I am loudly antifascist. Over the course of the book, Davis drops less-than-subtle clues to his own thoughts on Donald Trump and the president’s fascism.

It’s pertinent for me – as a reviewer – to comment on whether that commentary goes “too far” or “not far enough,” which will bring my own politics into it. It’d be a disservice to not at least mention this, but to talk about it at length would be to take this book review and turn it into a book report, and I don’t want to do some teenager’s job for them.

Davis starts off the book by reminding us that history is used in many ways. It can be a boring recitation of dates and numbers, or it can be used to create national legends; but often, “it is simply horrible.” He then goes on to remind the reader (or introduce if this is their first time reading about fascism) that with this subject matter, genocide will always be present.

Before diving into the individual stories of the chosen Strongmen, Davis gives a civics lesson. The point of this book is not merely to be a biography of evil but a study on what breeds fascism, often directly out of democracy. We touch on many complicated concepts, such as the dialectics of the “haves” and “have-nots” without much time to really explore them. We also have a whirlwind history of the Greek birth of democracy, the fall of the Roman republic, and how these two events created ripples these Strongmen rode.

And then comes our rogue’s gallery. Davis does them no favors in describing as much as he can the evils of their reigns. He points out the genocide(s) each one orchestrated. There are more details of evil accounts from Mussolini, Hitler, and Hussein then there are on Stalin and Mao. And even though he doesn’t mention why there’s a delineation between the two camps, but I can venture a guess: the latter had reigns that outlived them, whereas the former were all overthrown. Propaganda is a powerful tool that a Strongman wields as a cudgel – even more cruelly as their reign continues – so Stalin and Mao were able to erase their tracks. As such, their chapters seem to be a little more anemic when it comes to direct quotes talking about their atrocities. Most of their critics fell to purges before they could be quoted. Mussolini, Hitler, and Hussein weren’t so lucky, and we are the beneficiaries.

The book then posits whether fascism can come to the United States. Is our love of democracy so strong that a homegrown Strongman could never come to power? Davis’s own thoughts, as I touched on in my disclaimer, seems to be that we’re not as “fascism-proof” as we’d like to think. Throughout the book, he sprinkles references to Trump without invoking the name. He spells out the key indicators of a rising fascist, which includes attacking the press by calling them the “enemy of the people,” a phrase used by (but not limited to) Trump. He then punctuates it with the use of “fake news,” a thoroughly Trumpian phrase.

Right out of the gate, and throughout the book, the reader is invited to compare the stories of the five Strongmen to the 45th president of the United States.

Davis then also goes further to point out that genocide is not a thoroughly un-American ideal; quite the opposite, actually. Davis quietly nods his head to the centuries of genocide against the indigenous people of North America and the Atlantic slave trade and centuries of genocidal treatment of enslaved people. Hitler was inspired by America’s “treatment of the Indian,” Davis reminds us, and the contemporary comparisons continue as Davis describes how Hitler had a platform of “making Germany great again” – and Mussolini, too, had plans to “make Italy great again.” One can’t not make the leap to ask themselves how close to an image of a Strongman Donald Trump comes.

Davis comes just short of the j’accuse statement against the president, and I feel he made the right decision to bring us to the brink. He leaves it to the reader to make that leap… in a quiet Socratic way.

Strongman is primarily a brief tour of fascism, but for a YA reader who’s undecided if they’re interested in history or not, it’s the kind of book that might push them into discovering a passion for history. It does an eloquent job of tying the threads of antiquity to modern events. Showing how, though history may not explicitly repeat itself, it certainly rhymes. My own passion for history came to me later in life, and I know I would have appreciated having this book when I was much younger.

The book doesn’t go into excruciating details about genocide with events such as Stalin’s Holodomor and Hitler’s Holocaust, it doesn’t sugarcoat them either. I feel it’s important to know that going in, but I’m not one who feels that hiding horror from a generation will protect them. They need to look at it, understand it, and condemn it.

It’s with the tools of awareness that Davis presents this book, and it’s with those tools we can safeguard our collective home from another Strongman. Strongman is an essential read in any era, but it’s sadly even more relevant and necessary today.