Engineers of Human Souls: Four Writers Who Changed Twentieth-Century Minds

By Simon Ings

Four writers. Four dictators. One world, changed out of all recognition…

Engineers of Human Souls is an intimate and shocking shadow history of four writers whose overweening creative ambition shaped the careers of the century’s most notorious dictators.

Maurice Barres, who first discovered how to marry socialism and nationalism. Gabriele D’Annunzio, whose poetry became a blueprint for fascism in Italy. Maxim Gorky, dramatist of the working class and Stalin’s cheerleader. Ding Ling whose stories served the Maoist regime that kept her imprisoned for years.

Each nursed an extravagant vision of the future and believed they were vital to its realization. All four were lured to the centre of political action. There they created the blueprints and practices that sustained notorious regimes.

In a post-literary world dominated by social media, we all now wield a little of the power over crowds once wielded by Barres and Gorky, Ding Ling and D’Annunzio. These stories – of courage and compromise, vanity and malevolence – speak urgently to the uncontrollable power of words.