What is it that makes dictators fear cartoonists? The answer is that they can't stand to be ridiculed. Cartoonists may not be able to topple tyrants or change the course of history, but they can lessen the climate of fear and bring courage to the victims of state bullying with their subversive drawings.

In this book, you'll find dictators and wielders of power transformed into midgets, hotel porters, moustachioed horses, even a humble pear. Figures include:

• Hitler

• Stalin

• Mussolini

• Franco

• Mao Zedong

• Robert Mugabe

Written by renowned cartoonist and commentator Tony Husband, this shrewd and funny pictorial history traces the fightback led by artists against tyranny and its figureheads.