> or they fail when the charismatic leader dies and his heirs are not so charismatic.
As for totalitarianism - it's complicated, since totalitarianism in pre-modern societies looked very different. He would generally allow people in captured territories some degree of self-rule, as long as they sent the requisite taxes to support his war machine and didn't threaten his rule. But that's not all that different from the status of ordinary people in China: pay the requisite taxes and don't threaten the ruling party and you have a fair amount of latitude to go about your business unhindered. It's also very different from the degree of freedoms we're used to in the U.S, where threatening the ruling party is practically a national sport.
