A story in the New York Times by Nicholas Kristof (May 21, 2025) notes the impact of political scientist Gene Sharp on helping destroy tyrants in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and across Asia. The first of the three means Sharp and Kristof suggests is humor, echoing Nabokov in Tyrants Destroyed. Nabokov uses this in Bend Sinister, too, and the other two main means: emphasising corruption and mismanagement, and focusing on the case of the individual rather than oppressed groups: in this case, Krug and David.
