HOW TO FIGHT A DICTATOR
books by or about people who have fought against authoritarianism. recommendations, critiques, and discussions welcome!
created by kishmish
last updated July, 2026
Comments
This is great! I was going to say Open Veins of Latin America, but you added it to this list right as I opened it! Also, others could offer better input, but from @superllaine's posts it feels like Some People Need Killing: A Memoir of Murder in My Country might fit?
Throwing out a quick yellow flag - I had some people need killing on my tbr, but there was a controversy about the author attending an anti-palestine book festival so i took it off and replaced with how to stand up to a dictator. It was a somewhat nuanced situation from what i remember so i rec checking into it to inform that judgement call!
WTF
kishmishOP
Thank you for this heads up! I think Iâm going to take both books off for now (totally open to further discussion about this, though, especially from Pinoy and those who have read these books.) My current position, given the title of this list, is that while you can (sometimes) fight a dictator by allying yourself with an imperial power, you probably shouldnât.
love that take - I didn't feel informed enough to discern all the moral complications, so I decided to keep it simple and follow the pro-palestinian groups that requested the boycott. given that these books are also about fighting oppression it gets twisty real quick tho! what a time to be alive hah
If we're talking about the Frankfurt Bookfair, Maria Ressa, who wrote How to Stand Up to a Dictator, also went. Here's @r333ading's post on it for anyone who wants more information: click here
ty for linking! i think that is the post where I first learned about it, glad you were able find it despite my vague recollection
also worth noting that one of the first results when you google the author of some people need killing (for me, anyway) is an instagram video of them choosing to read words of gazan journalists at this event instead of their own work. their attendance at all is still worth criticizing but it seems they took the opportunity to use it as a form of protest.
Yeah, I found this Rolling Stone article
"The book fair, known to have explicitly taken a pro-Israel stance, saw the Filipino writer condemn violence against journalists in Gaza amid the genocide in Palestine" (this is about Evangelista) I'd respect a boycott way more but this is the next best thing to do in their position I guess...
they did protest at the fair but it's important to note that the boycott was first called in february 2025, the fair was october 2025. despite several attempts to convince them to back down in those 9 months before the fair, they didn't. there's another article about it (i'll find it later because i can't remember where i read it), one of the authors who went said something along the lines of "to our critics, we can only say mabuhay!" đ they made promotion posts for the fair. they praised the orgnization for choosing filipinos this time, since this was the first time in 10 years i think where they (frankfurt) featured asian writers. they valued representation and validation from white authors and readers more than their local peers' call for support.
edit: i was mistaken, not an article, but an ig post from esquire ph getting quotes from the authors about their attendance
kishmishOP
thank you for this link and your contextualization of the authorsâ decisions and behaviors. i think the statements in the instagram post demonstrate their neo-liberal position really well.
Oh man... A good example of the unfortunate Elite Capture of identity politics (reading about this rn)
So appreciative that you said something. Iâm embarrassingly out of touch with author news so comments like this are so helpful
Yes, Some People Need Killing fits! @r333ading is currently reading The Conjugal Dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos and Imelda Marcos by Primitivo Mijares which might also fit
kishmishOP
@r333adingâs posts about The Conjugal Dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos (and the reminder of how to approach serious topics like this) were the inspiration for this list! đ«¶đœ Itâs so special and cool that thereâs this space where we can learn about these things from each other and together.
Oh, shoot! Sorry, I didn't see that the book is already there! đ My bad for not checking first. Yeah, I really am learning a lot in PB and it's opened up new avenues for discussion on serious topics.
additionally - not sure if this is a valid suggestion, but I found a compilation of JosĂ© MartĂ's works translated to english on here. He has an essay called Nuestra AmĂ©rica which we studied as a seminal piece, but i'm not sure if that essay specifically has a translation!
kishmishOP
Oh, these sound amazing. đ«¶đœ thank you! josemarti.cu (Centro de Estudios Martianos) has a translation of that essay, though I donât know whether itâs done well or not. Iâll try to see if I can find out whether anything on PB includes a translation.
Obsessed with you making this tbh
Upvoted and bookmarked đ
đđ
haha yess, i love this even more xDD
How to Stand up to a Dictator by Nobel peace prize winner Maria Ressa!
kishmishOP
Thank you! đ«¶đœ I ended up taking this back off after adding it because of her attendance at the Frankfurt Bookfair in contravention of a called-for boycott because of the fairâs pro-Israel stance (discussion below, I think, because of how PB works? đ )
That doesnât sound like her at all. Iâll have to do some more reading on this, at a glance I found this where Ressa was being called antisemitic for supporting Palestine. âRessa, the CEO of Rappler, who ran an editorial equating Israel with Nazi Germany.â https://freebeacon.com/democrats/hillary-clinton-to-bestoy-award-on-journalist-who-equated-israel-with-nazis-and-accused-jewish-critics-of-seeking-money-and-power/ (no idea what this source is, Iâll look into this topic more over the weekend)
Iconic â€ïžâ€ïžâ€ïžâ€ïžâ€ïž and I'm adding these to my tbr!!
This is iconic LOL đ€Łđ€Łđ€Ł
Iâm not very well-read here, but I appreciate this list a lot. Voices of resistance matter, and Iâm glad to see them highlighted like this.
love this kishmish !!!
great list!!!!!!!! although funnily enough, primitivo mijares actually does somewhat explain how to become a dictator because he helped marcos rise to power. he was marcos' propagandist and press censor. đ adding the others to my shelves so i dont clog the feed with "interesteds" đ«Ą
kishmishOP
oh no đ at first, I was going to say that I wanted to keep it on simply because your posts about it were such a good reminder to me that there are really important lessons I have yet to learn about this subject. But seeing your last post, maybe I should take it off? hahah, what do you think?
keep it! its an important and complicated text where a man's neoliberalism led to dictatorship. his guilt makes him very talkative and honest so there are details in it that only a dictator's most trusted council would know. in the end, he did use his role and knowledge to fight a dictatorship so this book belongs here, just prepare to be confused and frustrated reading it đ
Incredibleeee đ
Love this list!!! đ€©đ€©đđ»
Thank youuuuuuu it's a great list to recover from the other one đ đ I only have Pedagogy of the Oppressed on my interested list rn but I'll definitely look into all of the others, they sound super interesting âšïž
I haven't read it yet, so I can't 100% vouch for it, but I think The Rebel and the Kingdom: The True Story of the Secret Mission to Overthrow the North Korean Regime by Bradley Hope would fit this list!
kishmishOP
This sounds wild! Iâve added it. Thank you! đ«¶đœ Sometimes books published in the US about North Korea can be a little⊠heavy on exaggeration? But maybe once youâve read it, you can report back.
đ«Ą will do!
Other Filipinos can chime in on this, i think False Nostalgia: The Marcos âGolden Ageâ Myths and How to Debunk Them by J.C. Punongbayan sounds like the perfect book for this.
I haven't figured out how to get my hands on this personally (I'm having issues with account creation but it's technically available to purchase as an ebook on Ateneo press), and I'm not sure if you want your list to be books that are fairly accessible to the rest of the world. But this book is about arming yourself with knowledge, evidence, and data compiled by Punongbayan so you can rebuke the Marcos supporters' claims that are/were rampant on social media.
kishmishOP
Thank you for this recommendation! Iâve added it. I think, for a topic like this, itâs valuable to at least try to keep track of what information is readily available and what isnât. Sometimes the reasons are innocuous, but sometimes patterns emerge, and itâs good to try to notice those.
Thank you!!
Iâd recommend Timothy Snyderâs short book, On Tyranny. It doesnât focus on any particular dictator, but references how dictators exploit conditions to gain power. It not only serves as a guide, but also as a reminder of what we can do as conscientious citizens to help avoid or minimize this scenario.
kishmishOP
Thank you for the recommendation! đ«¶đœ I honestly have not heard great things about this (and Iâve tried to focus this list more on people who have practical experience rather than those who are philosophizing more abstractly), but it being so short, I will check it out for myself!
I got hooked because the first chapter captured the very first thing that happened when Trump signed his anti-DEI executive order. (1. Do not obey in advance.) His order was only directed at the federal civil service and programs funded by the federal government. Yet many private corporations immediately canceled their DEI initiatives, even though the EO was not directed at them. They started their boot-licking immediately. Itâs not a philosophical treatise, and not in the least abstract. More like a set of instructions, though admittedly, some chapters are better than others.
Since youâre focusing on people, thereâs also Vaclav Havelâs book, The Power of the Powerless, written well before (1978) he became a politician. He, too, focuses on actions. I havenât read it, but itâs on my TBR.
kishmishOP
That does sound valuable. âDo not obey in advanceâ is good advice. And, Havelâs book was on my list to look into more! đ Thank you so much for mentioning it! Iâve added it.
