The illness or disability of a world leader can change the course of history. When Lenin became too infirm to remove Stalin from a position of power, when the shah of Iran's terminal cancer was kept secret from fellow Iranians and foreign supporters until Ayatollah Khomeini's Islamic revolution had succeeded, the political consequences were monumental. In this absorbing book, two experts in political psychology reveal how the infirmities of leaders have affected their own societies and the broader course of world events. Drawing on a wide range of examples, including Mad King Ludwig of...