The #1 New York Times bestseller

How I Became a Dictator
A Practical Step by Step Guide to World Domination

A good dictator needs a good headquarters: Back in the 80’s, I used to play with little Jong Il from next door. He was a bit of a creep and wouldn’t let me touch his action figures. I tried to rob him a couple of times, especially when his eyes glazed over while watching one of those old video clips of the hydrogen bomb going off. But he always caught me and each time he did I had to be a Communist for the day. Little Jong Il was shorter than me and younger than me and had his finger in his nose for a good sixty percent of the day, sometimes even multiple fingers. One day little Jong Il summoned me from my picket fence home. He told me he had big plans; big plans he would tell me about only if I agreed under oath that my end of the block was to be considered communally owned by his pretend regime. I agreed to him, and so we tore up a recycled paper bag and drafted the agreement. Little Jong Il had blueprints for his headquarters which was to be covered on all sides with the Wal-Mart logo, symbolizing the ultimate evil of his pretend regime. He summoned his mother and demanded scrap metal for the construction of his HQ. His mother smiled affectionately at him and handed him an empty refrigerator box instead. On that day, little Jong Il’s mother found a place on his black list, right below Vice President Cheney. Little Jong Il was sent to boarding school one day. I was free from oppression. I tore up his refrigerator box and claimed his end of the block. I ordered a leather chair from EBay. I am currently a garage-based dictatorship.