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Professor
Frank DikötterChair Professor of Humanities
BA, MA Geneva; PhD Lond; FRHistS
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Professor Frank Dikötter was Distinguished Visiting Professor for the Academic Year 2004-5. In 2006, he was appointed to the new position of Chair of Humanities in the Faculty of Arts. Before moving to Hong Kong, he was Professor of the Modern History of China at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He has published a dozen books and over 65 refereed articles and chapters in books that have changed the way we look at the history of modern China. He has raised more than HKD15 million for pure research and has over 4,300 citations on Google Scholar. His Mao's Great Famine won the prestigious Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction in 2011. He is also Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and holds an honorary doctorate from Leiden University.
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Current Research Projects
The Making of the Cult of Personality in the Twentieth Century
Image and power have always been closely related, but in the twentieth century a new phenomenon appeared that went well beyond the public veneration of influential individuals, namely the cult of personality. In an age of democracy, when power was no longer seen to be a divine attribute but was vested in the people instead, the cult of personality was used by one-party states to achieve the illusion of popular approval without ever having to resort to elections. By closely studying the cult of personality built around eight leaders, the project adopts a comparative approach: dictators did not exist in a vacuum, they learned from each other. Mao was a keen student of Stalin, while Hitler closely observed Mussolini. Dictators visited each other, spoke to each other, corresponded with each other, and often sent large delegations to study all aspects of government, including the cult of personality and propaganda more generally. Personality cults, of course, changed over time, and not only as a result of new technologies such as radio and television. Some of the most momentous changes in international politics are related to the cult of personality, in particular Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin in 1956, which set off a chain reaction among allies in the socialist camp. Paradoxically, the Sino-Soviet rift encouraged the spread of personality cults in China and North Korea. As the initiative shifted to Asia, leaders such as Ceausescu and Mengistu visited Pyongyang instead of Moscow to learn the ropes.
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Publications
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Teaching and Courses Taught
Research Postgraduate Supervisions
Prof. Dikötter has supervised Research Postgraduates in the following areas:
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| Latest Publication | |
 | Book How to Be a Dictator: The Cult of Personality in the Twentieth Century |
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Bloomsbury Publishing Publication Date: 12.2019 (hardcover) | |
