The dictator who became so rich from his country's cocoa production that he built a 35-story basilica in the jungle of Ivory Coast. The strict, incorruptible leader who has isolated Eritrea from the world in a permanent state of war and conscripted every adult into the armed forces. In Equatorial Guinea, the paranoid despot who believed Hitler was Africa's savior and led a relentless terror campaign against his own people. The Libyan officer who authored a new work of political philosophy, the Green Book, and lived in a tent with a harem of female soldiers while running his country like a Mafia family business. And behind these almost unbelievable stories of fantastic violence and excess lie the dark secrets of Western greed and complicity, the insatiable thirst for chocolate, oil, diamonds, and gold that has encouraged dictators to rule with an iron fist and siphon off their wealth.