The School for Dictators: A New Version. by Ignazio Silone - 1963.

New York, NY Atheneum, 1963. Hardcover First Ed, so stated. First Ed, so stated. Very Good: shows light shelfwear; slight spine lean; faint soil spot at front panel; foxing at endpapers and outside edges. Binding secure; text clean. Despite noted flaws, remains clean, sturdy, presentable. NOT a Remainder. NOT a Book-Club Edition. NOT an Ex-Library copy. 8vo. 244pp. New Preface by the Author. Translated by William Weaver. Hardback: Lacks DJ. This work, by one of the great Italian writers of the twentieth-century - and translated by THE greatest Italian-into-English translator of the twentieth-century (William Weaver) - is presented as a sort of Socratic dialogue, set in Zurich, involving, along with a cynic, Mr. Double You (yeah, "W"), who hopes to become dictator of the United States, and his mentor and advisor, Professor Pickup, who is a cornfed combination of Machiavelli and Dr. Pangloss. Is this starting to sound eerily familiar? Are the hairs on the back of your neck starting to tingle? I'll leave you with a quote from Mr. Double You: "What would you say if I allowed the 'fifth column' to steal the coffin of the Unknown Soldier? And if I then arranged that I personally should have the honor of finding it again in some cave in a photogenic mountainous landscape? Or what if I had the Statue of Liberty blown up, blaming it on the same 'fifth column'? Strictly between ourselves, that statue has always got on my nerves." Actually, this is all a complete coincidence (the book was originally written in 1938 and updated in 1963)--and a bad joke at that, but, still, it's odd that none of the conspiracy theorists have alighted on this prescient screed to date - but then it's never too late - or is it?.