Not everyone can become a tyrant. It requires a particular confluence of events to gain absolute control over entire nations.

First, you must be born with the potential to develop brutal personality traits. Second, your predisposition to antisocial behavior must be developed and strengthened during childhood. Finally, you must come of age when the political system of your country is unstable. Together, these events establish a basis for a rise to power, one that Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Mao Zedong, Saddam Hussein, and Muammar Qaddafi all used to gain life-and-death control over their countrymen and women.

"Getting inside the heads" of foreign leaders and terrorists is one way governments try to understand, predict, and influence their actions. Psychological profiles can help us understand the urges of tyrants to dominate, subjugate, torture and slaughter.

Tyrannical Minds reveals how recognizing their psychological traits can provide insight into the motivations and actions of dangerous leaders, potentially allow to us predict their behavior - and even how to stop them.

Contains mature themes.