A while ago, I noticed that some leaders of M-L AES states had authored many theoretical books, articles and essays[1][2] while I hadn’t really seen this occur in liberal democracies.
If we include ghostwriters (and if you like Xi’s works, then you should), Donald Trump may in fact be the most prolific author of the White House leadership.
Xi basically has transcriptions of speeches (in substance or literally) and they aren’t very interesting or compelling, but I think it’s worth noting that Stalin also wrote a few books, etc. and they’re mostly pretty good*, though certainly not as important or original as Lenin’s or Mao’s. I think Che is also worth noting here, even though he’s not as focused on theory as such.
*the linguistics one, for example, is not good, though it has good features like reasonably denouncing certain bizarre theories that gained traction in the SU for some reason.
I thought I made note of that extremely obvious point, but I guess I lost it between revisions. I just don’t find it that helpful to focus so much on the head of state in a country trying to do Marxism, or if you’re focusing so much on the head of state, it’s because something went very wrong.
I mean I think the question is really interesting as specifically heads of state who have published works. For instance many of the Founding Fathers have a multitude of works, fiction and theory, but Washington did not. Just letters. Che wrote theories and diaries, but Fidel who was leader, was far less of a writer. Half of a given cabinet is bound to have a book, but how many heads of state have published books that are not biographical?
I think narrowing it to that is interesting, and more specifically what the Trump question begs
We are not making some grand judgement on a political project based on the leaders, we are literally responding to a query about specifically heads of state. I don’t know how “something went very wrong” because people are focusing on the parameters of the conversation.
Completely off-topic, but “begging the question” is a specific term for when you assume your conclusion in the premise of your argument, rather than “raises the question” or something like that.
If you count the UK then Churchill wrote a LOT. Also Disraeli wrote a bunch of political fiction.
It is weirdly hard to search for politicians who have published works, autobiographies fuck up SOE, as do questions about writers who influence politicians.
I am pretty sure the first head of state of socialist Romania has scientific works published Constantin Ion Parhon
A while ago, I noticed that some leaders of M-L AES states had authored many theoretical books, articles and essays[1] [2] while I hadn’t really seen this occur in liberal democracies.
If we include ghostwriters (and if you like Xi’s works, then you should), Donald Trump may in fact be the most prolific author of the White House leadership.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Lenin_bibliography ↩︎
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong#Writings_and_calligraphy ↩︎
Xi basically has transcriptions of speeches (in substance or literally) and they aren’t very interesting or compelling, but I think it’s worth noting that Stalin also wrote a few books, etc. and they’re mostly pretty good*, though certainly not as important or original as Lenin’s or Mao’s. I think Che is also worth noting here, even though he’s not as focused on theory as such.
*the linguistics one, for example, is not good, though it has good features like reasonably denouncing certain bizarre theories that gained traction in the SU for some reason.
foco off
Like clathrateG said that is just not true about Che, but also, not a leader of a nation.
I thought I made note of that extremely obvious point, but I guess I lost it between revisions. I just don’t find it that helpful to focus so much on the head of state in a country trying to do Marxism, or if you’re focusing so much on the head of state, it’s because something went very wrong.
I mean I think the question is really interesting as specifically heads of state who have published works. For instance many of the Founding Fathers have a multitude of works, fiction and theory, but Washington did not. Just letters. Che wrote theories and diaries, but Fidel who was leader, was far less of a writer. Half of a given cabinet is bound to have a book, but how many heads of state have published books that are not biographical?
I think narrowing it to that is interesting, and more specifically what the Trump question begs
We are not making some grand judgement on a political project based on the leaders, we are literally responding to a query about specifically heads of state. I don’t know how “something went very wrong” because people are focusing on the parameters of the conversation.
Completely off-topic, but “begging the question” is a specific term for when you assume your conclusion in the premise of your argument, rather than “raises the question” or something like that.
If you count the UK then Churchill wrote a LOT. Also Disraeli wrote a bunch of political fiction.
It is weirdly hard to search for politicians who have published works, autobiographies fuck up SOE, as do questions about writers who influence politicians.
I am pretty sure the first head of state of socialist Romania has scientific works published Constantin Ion Parhon
I don’t think that’s true about Trump. How many autobiographies has Obama written?