Personality and Power is a masterful reckoning with how character conspired with opportunity to create the modern age's uniquely devastating despots--and how and why other countries found better paths. Whole societies were reshaped and wars were fought, often with a merciless contempt for the most basic norms. At the summit of these societies were leaders whose personalities somehow enabled them to do whatever they wished, regardless of the consequences for others. Ian Kershaw uses his exceptional skills as an iconic historian to explore how strikingly different figures wielded power.