Dictatorship

Historian and Atlantic journalist Anne Applebaum says authoritarian rulers have joined together, creating a network of economic and political support, while suppressing the spread of democracy.

Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt are experts in what makes democracies healthy — and what leads to their collapse. They warn that American democracy is in trouble.

Pamela Constable and Arturo Valenzuela. Their new book, "A Nation of Enemies," examines how Chile, , a country with a long history of democracy, slipped into more than a decade of dictatorship under Augusto Pinochet. Constable is Latin America correspondent for the Boston Globe, Valenzuela is director of the Center for Latin American Studies at Georgetown University. (The book's published by W.W. Norton).

Galeano wrote the trilogy, "Memory of Fire," a surrealistic history of the Americas. Galeano comes from Urugua; he fled to Argentina when the dictatorship took over, and later fled Spain. His new book is "The Book of Embraces," and draw from his own life.

Arias advocates for writers who dissent against repressive governments. He lives in the United States, but occasionally returns to his home country. His newest novel, After the Bombs, about a young boy growing up in a politically unstable Guatemala City, has just been published in English.

Sunday Times journalist James Adams reports on the increase of chemical weapons stores in Iraq -- which was fueled in part by the actions of wealthier, Western countries. He says dictators around the world are more likely to use their weapons stores, which poses a problem for developed countries. An expert on the arms business, Adams believes war between the United States and Iraq is inevitable.