This book concerns the wanting, getting, and giving ofpower. Recent advances in medicine, sociology, and psychologyhave deepened our understanding of the motives,skills, and experience that operate between leaders andthose who are led. Since power is about decision-making,it figures not only in offi cial institutions but in otherorganizations, including political parties, pressure groups,trade associations, business enterprises, trade unions, andmany other types of organizations. A general theory of the political personality is set forthhere. Lasswell describes the process by which power becomesa value of fi rst importance and the way appropriateskills in exercising power are acquired. He shows thatspecial political types such as agitators or administratorsare related to basic types of character that contribute tohow they lead. Finally, his analysis off ers original perspectivesto understand democratic leadership. Lasswell offers definite suggestions for perfecting"self-observatories" in national and world affairs and forforming democratic personalities, selecting and trainingdemocratic leaders, and reducing destructive conflicts inhuman relationships. Power and Personality followed theauthor's 1930 work Psychopathology and Politics, whichwas widely hailed for its pioneering approach. Power andPersonality reevaluated the entire issue of the relationshipbetween psychology and politics in the light of subsequentexperience and scientifi c developments since publicationof that earlier work. Lasswell's ideas continue to carrygreat weight and persuasiveness. Harold D. Lasswell served as FordFoundation Professor of the Social Sciencesat Yale University, DistinguishedProfessor of Policy Sciences at John JayCollege of the City University of NewYork, and as professor of political scienceat the University of Chicago. He was apast president of the American PoliticalScience Association and author of manybooks covering the full range of political and policy research. Peter deLeon is director of the doctorate program and professorat the School of Public Aff airs, University of Colorado, Denver.In 2000 he received the distinguished Harold D. Lasswell Awardfrom the Policy Studies Organization. He is the author ofThinking about Political Corruption, Democracy and the PolicySciences, and Advice and Consent.

One of the great historians of our age asks: how far can a single leader alter the course of history? The modern era saw the emergence of individuals who had command over a terrifying array of instruments of control, persuasion and death. Whole societies were re-shaped and wars fought, often with a merciless contempt for the most basic norms. At the summit of these societies were leaders whose personalities had somehow given them the ability to do whatever they wished. Ian Kershaw's new book is a compelling, lucid and challenging attempt to understand these rulers, whether operating on the widest stage (Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini) or with a more national impact (Tito, Franco). What was it about these leaders and the times they lived in that allowed them such untrammelled and murderous power? And what brought that era to an end? In a contrasting group of profiles, from Churchill to de Gaulle, Adenauer to Gorbachev, and Thatcher to Kohl, Kershaw uses his exceptional skills to think through how other, strikingly different figures wielded power.

This book, first published in 2002, analyses the ways in which power is experienced by individuals as agents and objects.