This title examines totalitarian governments in world history from the post-World War II era, including the Soviet Union, Italy, Germany, China, Cuba, North Korea, Zimbabwe, and Burma. Totalitarian leaders such as Caligula, Napoleon I, Simon Bolivar, Adolph Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong, Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong Il are also examined. Dictatorships, how dictators acquire and hold power, and the methods by which they can end are discussed. Life in a totalitarian regime is also explored, including lack of democratic freedoms, religious persecution, and elimination and imprisonment of dissenters. Important events such as the Holocaust, Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, perestroika, and the 1989 Tiananmen Square protest are addressed. Government organization and operations, including personality cults, secret police, propaganda, as well as the central economic system, is analyzed and compared and contrasted with other forms of government. Exploring World Governments is a series in Essential Library, an imprint of ABDO Publishing Company.