As Asia rises, geopolitical competition once again threatens its future. China’s aggressiveness, Sino-Japanese rivalry, regional territorial disputes, and North Korea’s nuclear weapons are shaping the Indo-Pacific and the world.

In this collection leading scholars and practitioners discuss ideas about freedom and how to take the ideas into action today. The discussions took place at a January 2020 meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society which was founded in 1947 for the “preservation and improvement of the free society.” Today, challenges to the free society are again mounting and threatening economic growth and rising prosperity. We hear calls for a return to socialism, for restrictions on trade, for regulations on firms and individuals that go well beyond cost-benefit calculations.

No dictator can rule through fear and violence alone. Naked power can be grabbed and held temporarily, but it never suffices in the long term. In the twentieth century, as new technologies allowed leaders to place their image and voice directly into their citizens' homes, a new phenomenon appeared where dictators exploited the cult of personality to achieve the illusion of popular approval without ever having to resort to elections.

A comparison of nine leaders who led their nations through the greatest wars the world has ever seen and whose unique strengths--and weaknesses--shaped the course of human history, from the bestselling, award-winning author of Churchill and Napoleon.