How to Become a Tyrant

E1 · 31m

Seize Power

Interested in becoming a tyrant? There are rules, and the playbook for a rise to dictatorship starts with one of history's most brutal: Adolf Hitler.

E2 · 27m

Crush Your Rivals

You've secured your place at the top, but maintaining power means watching your back. Nobody did that better or more ruthlessly than Saddam Hussein.

E3 · 28m

Reign Through Terror

When keeping your population under control, is it better to be loved or feared? Idi Amin certainly thought he knew the right answer to that question.

E4 · 27m

Control the Truth

Through public relations spin, revisionist history and censorship. Soviet autocrat Joseph Stalin found a certain flexibility with the truth useful.

E5 · 26m

Create a New Society

Free speech? Right to assembly? Rebel-turned-dictator Muammar Gaddafi realized that civil liberties had to go when reshaping society. But he got soft.

E6 · 30m

Rule Forever

Seizing power is hard, but keeping it is harder. In North Korea, the Kim dynasty unlocked the secret to ruling forever: They declared themselves gods.