Dictatorship on its Trial by With essays by twenty-two contributors including Albert Einstein, Edited by Otto Forst de Battaglia, with an Introduction by Winston S. Churchill - 1930: Twenty-two Essays by Eminent Leaders of Modern Thought

London: George G. Harrap & Co., Ltd., 1930. First edition. Hardcover. This 1930 collection of essays responded to the wave of militant and authoritarian nationalism then sweeping through inter-war Europe. Twenty-two essays by eminent leaders of modern thought address the question: Is dictatorship, which has already been established in several countries, likely to replace other existing governments in Europe? The contributors include Albert Einstein, newspaper editors, historians, religious leaders, and political leaders including then-Reichstag President Paul Löbe (who would be imprisoned by the Nazis in 1933). The volume is illustrated with a frontispiece portrait of Mussolini and fifteen other portraits of historic and contemporary leaders, spanning Caesar to Lenin. The essays are edited by the Austrian historian Otto Forst de Battaglia with a substantive, four-page introduction by Winston S. Churchill.

This first edition, first printing is notable both for presence of the scarce dust jacket and for a variant binding. The striking yellow dust jacket now quite scarce was uniform for all first edition copies but the bindings were not; copies are known in both red and black cloth. This binding is something we have only encountered once before dark green cloth.

Condition of this copy is very good minus in a very good minus dust jacket. The dark green cloth variant binding is square and tight with excellent, unfaded color, though with shelf wear to the extremities, and rippling and blemishes to the spine cloth. The contents remain bright with a crisp, unread feel. Light spotting is confined to the page edges. The dust jacket has a neatly price-clipped lower front flap and fractional loss to the flap fold corners, but is otherwise complete, with light wear to extremities, spine toning, and modest overall soiling. The jacket is protected beneath a clear, removable, archival cover.

Winston Churchill spends the first page and a half of his introduction painting a vision of the chasm which the Great War has riven between the twentieth and nineteenth centuries characterized by the halting of the apparent and presumed ascendance of representative democracy which had seemed to promise the end of all despotic or even arbitrary forms of government Churchill bluntly states that This volume shows us how far these anticipations have been proved false. The balance of his introduction is thoughtful reflection on the social forces feeding the competing impulses to democracy and dictatorship and the open question of which will prevail.

It is important to remember the state of the world at the time and the fact that Churchill himself was beginning a decade that he would spend out of power and out of favor, doomed to be both prophetically accurate and largely unheeded about the growing threats to liberalism and security until the Second World War began in 1939. Context may account for the clear and uncharacteristic cynicism in his introduction: The vote given to every one has been regarded as a trifle by many, and as a nuisance by many more. There is no guarantee that universal suffrage will understand, cherish, or even protect the venerable instrument to which it owes its birth. It requires no great stretch of imagination to hear an echo of relevance in these words today.

Reference: Cohen B42.1, Woods B14