The Dictator's Seduction focuses on the state extending itself into civil society based on the vernacular politics of personhood. The themes of masculinity and fantasies of race and class mobility are seen clearly. Derby studies the everyday form of domination of the Trujillo regime. She does a great job of showing how the regime was understood by the poor as well as the educated Dominican. Derby helps to rethink the boundaries of the Dominican state and the locus of politics.