Totalitarian rule is commonly thought to derive from spe- cific ideologies that justify the complete control by the state of social, cultural, and political institutions. The major goal of this volume is to demonstrate that in some cases brutal forms of state control have been the only way to maintain basic social order. Dmitry Shlapentokh seeks to show that totalitarian or semi-totalitarian regimes have their roots in a fear of disorder that may overtake both rulers and the society at large. Although ideology has played an important role in many totalitarian regimes, it has not always been the chief reason for repression. In many cases, the desire to establish order led to internal terror and intrusiveness in all aspects of human life. Shlapentokh seeks the roots of this phenomenon in France in the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, when asocial processes in the wake of the Hundred Years War led to the emergence of a brutal absolutist state whose features and policies bore a striking resemblance to totalitarian regimes in the Soviet Union and China. State punishment and control allowed for relentless drive to "normalize" society with the state actively engaged in the regulation of social life. There were attempts to regulate the economy and instances of social engineering, attempts to populate emerging colonial empires with exiles and produce "new men and women" through reeducation. This increased harshness in dealing with the populace, in fact, the emergence of a new sort of bondage, was combined with a twisted form of humanitarianism and the creation of a rudimentary safety net. Some of these elements can be found in the democratic societies of the modern West, although in their aggregation these attributes are essential features of totalitarian regimes of the modem era.

From the author of international bestseller On Tyranny, this prescient analysis of Russia's ongoing interference in the West is now more relevant than ever. 'One of the best...brisk, conceptually convincing account of democracy's retreat in the early years of 21st century' Guardian The past is another country, the old saying goes. The same might be said of the future. But which country? For Europeans and Americans today, the answer is Russia. In this visionary work of contemporary history, Timothy Snyder shows how Russia works within the West to destroy the West; by supporting the far right in Europe, invading Ukraine in 2014, and waging a cyberwar during the 2016 presidential campaign and the EU referendum. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the creation of Donald Trump, an American failure deployed as a Russian weapon. But this threat presents an opportunity to better understand the pillars of our freedoms and face the choices that will determine the future: equality or oligarchy, individualism or totalitarianism, truth or lies. 'A brilliant and disturbing analysis, which should be read by anyone wishing to understand the political crisis currently engulfing the world' Yuval Noah Harari, bestselling author of Sapiens

Exam Board: Edexcel Level: A level Subject: History First teaching: September 2015 First exams: June 2017 This book: covers the essential content in the new specifications in a rigorous and engaging way, using detailed narrative, sources, timelines, key words, helpful activities and extension material helps develop conceptual understanding of areas such as evidence, interpretations, causation and change, through targeted activities provides assessment support for both AS and A level with sample answers, sources, practice questions and guidance to help you tackle the new-style exam questions. It also comes with three years' access to ActiveBook, an online, digital version of your textbook to help you personalise your learning as you go through the course - perfect for revision.

This volume, first published in 1984, contains the principal papers from a distinguished colloquium held in 1982. Its avowed purpose is to investigate further the notion of "totalitarian democracy" and to look at its repercussions in the contemporary world.

Winner of a Catholic Media Association Book Award The forgotten history of American terrorists who, in the name of God, conspired to overthrow the government and formed an alliance with Hitler. On January 13, 1940, FBI agents burst into the homes and offices of seventeen members of the Christian Front, seizing guns, ammunition, and homemade bombs. J. Edgar Hoover's charges were incendiary: the group, he alleged, was planning to incite a revolution and install a "temporary dictatorship" in order to stamp out Jewish and Communist influence in the United States. Interviewed in his jail cell, the front's ringleader was unbowed: "All I can say is-long live Christ the King! Down with Communism!" In Nazis of Copley Square, Charles Gallagher provides a crucial missing chapter in the history of the American far right. The men of the Christian Front imagined themselves as crusaders fighting for the spiritual purification of the nation, under assault from godless Communism, and they were hardly alone in their beliefs. The front traced its origins to vibrant global Catholic theological movements of the early twentieth century, such as the Mystical Body of Christ and Catholic Action. The front's anti-Semitism was inspired by Sunday sermons and by lay leaders openly espousing fascist and Nazi beliefs. Gallagher chronicles the evolution of the front, the transatlantic cloak-and-dagger intelligence operations that subverted it, and the mainstream political and religious leaders who shielded the front's activities from scrutiny. Nazis of Copley Square is a grim tale of faith perverted to violent ends, and a warning for those who hope to curb the spread of far-right ideologies today.

For decades scholars have pored over Hitler's autobiographical journey/political treatise, debating if Mein Kampf has genocidal overtones and arguably led to the Holocaust. For the first time, Hitler's Mein Kampf and the Holocaust sees celebrated international scholars analyse the book from various angles to demonstrate how it laid the groundwork for the Shoah through Hitler's venomous attack on the Jews in his text. Split into three main sections which focus on 'contexts', 'eugenics' and 'religion', the book reflects carefully on the point at which the Fuhrer's actions and policies turn genocidal during the Third Reich and whether Mein Kampf presaged Nazi Germany's descent into genocide. There are contributions from leading academics from across the United States and Germany, including Magnus Brechtken, Susannah Heschel and Nathan Stoltzfus, along with totally new insights into the source material in light of the 2016 German critical edition of Mein Kampf. Hitler's views on Marxism, violence, and leadership, as well as his anti-Semitic rhetoric are examined in detail as you are taken down the disturbing path from a hateful book to the Holocaust.

What does the head of the Kremlin think about? What are his hopes and aims for the lands bordering Russia, for Europe, and even the world? In January 2014, the Kremlin sent its senior civil servants, governors and party bigwigs a special New Year's present: philosophy books, by 19th and 20th century Russian thinkers. This reading list is not optional: the president himself has cited these authors in landmark speeches, and they need to understand what he means. The most persistent of the bunch will find these great works strangely familiar, full of the national leader's role in an 'authentic' democracy, the importance of being conservative, the urgency of rooting morality in religion, and the historic struggle of the Russian people against the timeless hostility of the West. President Putin is the man who manages and manipulates these existential anxieties. And since the annexation of Crimea, the need to decrypt his vision for the nation-propelled by the Kremlin's Eurasian neo-imperialists and prophets of `Russian-way' conservatism-has become more pressing than ever. In this revealing and engrossing book, Michel Eltchaninoff invites us inside the psyche of the Russian president for a better understanding of his doctrine and geopolitical vision. He offers answers to an urgent question for our 21st century world: what is Vladimir Putin thinking?

_______________ A SPECTATOR AND NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR 'A revolutionary book' Sunday Times 'A pulsating account that makes clear how important it is to look beneath the surface when it comes to any period or region in history - but above all to China' Peter Frankopan, TLS 'Essential reading for anyone who wants to know what has shaped today's China and what the Chinese Communist Party's choices mean for the rest of the world' New Statesman Books of the Year _______________ From the Samuel Johnson Prize-winning author of Mao's Great Famine, a timely and compelling account of China in the wake of Chairman Mao In China After Mao, award-winning historian Frank Dikoetter explores how the People's Republic of China was transformed from a backwater economy in the 1970s into the world superpower of today. His account is the first to be based on hundreds of previously unseen archival documents, from the secret minutes of top party meetings to confidential bank reports. Unfolding with great narrative sweep, this riveting, richly detailed chronicle recasts our understanding of an era that both the regime and foreign admirers celebrate as an economic miracle. In charting four decades of so-called 'Reform and Opening Up' and China's emergence as a world power, Dikoetter tells a fascinating tale of contradictions and illusions, of shadow banking, anti-corruption drives and extreme state wealth standing alongside everyday poverty. He examines China's approach to the 2008 financial crash, the country's increasing hostility towards perceived Western interference and its development into a thoroughly entrenched dictatorship - one equipped with a sprawling security apparatus and the most sophisticated surveillance system in the world. Ultimately, the book concludes, the communist party's goal was never to join the democratic sphere, but to resist it - and then defeat it. Praise for Frank Dikoetter and the People's Trilogy: 'Harrowing and brilliant' Ben Macintyre 'The historian of China' Spectator 'One of the few books that anyone who wants to understand the twentieth century simply must read' New Statesman 'The seminal English language work on the subject' Sunday Times 'Gripping and masterful' - Simon Sebag Montefiore

Ukrainian dissident Myroslav Marynovych recounts his involvement in the Brezhnev-era human rights movement in the Soviet Union and his resulting years as a political prisoner in Siberia and in internal exile. This memoir by a prominent Ukrainian dissident, now in English translation, offers a unique account that spans the entire postwar period, from the author's childhood in newly Soviet western Ukraine and coming of age within the Communist system to the collapse of the Soviet Union, concluding with his reflections on culpability and justice in the post-Soviet context. Marynovych's description of the varied landscape of Ukrainian dissent in the 1960s and 1970s focuses on the emerging human rights movement, especially the creation of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, of which he was a founding member. He vividly recounts his encounters with the Soviet repressive apparatus, including his arrest and trial, and offers a rich picture of daily life in a Siberian prison camp and his internal exile in Kazakhstan. Imbued with the author's deep Christian convictions, this memoir sheds light on the key role faith played for some participants in the Soviet human rights movement, a movement that has most often been seen as having a secular inflection. It also provides a fresh look at the complex place of Ukrainian dissidents within the broader Soviet human rights movement, as well as the interplay between human rights advocates and other dissident groups in Soviet Ukraine.

In surrealist artist Paul Klee's The Twittering Machine, the bird-song of a diabolical machine acts as bait to lure humankind into a pit of damnation. Leading political writer and broadcaster Richard Seymour argues that this is a chilling metaphor for our relationship with social media. Former social media executives tell us that the system is an addiction-machine. We are users, waiting for our next hit as we like, comment and share. We write to the machine as individuals, but it responds by aggregating our fantasies, desires and frailties into data, and returning them to us as a commodity experience. Through journalism, psychoanalytic reflection and insights from users, developers, security experts and others, Seymour probes the human side of the machine, asking what we're getting out of it, and what we're getting into.

'A heartbreaking portrait of an ordinary family shattered by a war they didn't want' The Times They've wrecked the world, these men, and still they're not done. They'd take the sky if they could. Germany, 1945, and the bombs are falling. In Heidenfeld, Etta and her husband Josef roam an empty nest: their eldest son Max is fighting on the frontlines, while fifteen-year-old Georg has swapped books for guns at a Nurnberg school for the Hitler Youth. At home, news of the war provokes daily doses of fear as the planes grow closer, taking one city after the next. When Max is unexpectedly discharged, Etta is relieved to have her eldest home and safe. But soon after he arrives, it's clear that the boy who left is not the same returned. With Georg a hundred miles away and a husband confronting his own difficult feelings toward patriotic duty, Etta alone must gather the pieces of a splintering family, determined to hold them together in the face of an uncertain future.

"[An] incredibly moving collection of oral histories . . . important enough to be added to the history curriculum" Telegraph "Essential reading" History Today "A moving evocation . . . An illuminating if harrowing insight into life in a totalitarian state." Clarissa de Waal, author of ALBANIA: PORTRAIT OF A COUNTRY IN TRANSITION "Albania, enigmatic, mysterious Albania, was always the untold story of the Cold War, the 1989 revolutions and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Mud Sweeter Than Honey goes a very long way indeed towards putting that right" New European After breaking ties with Yugoslavia, the USSR and then China, Enver Hoxha believed that Albania could become a self-sufficient bastion of communism. Every day, many of its citizens were thrown into prisons and forced labour camps for daring to think independently, for rebelling against the regime or trying to escape - the consequences of their actions were often tragic and irreversible. Mud Sweeter than Honey gives voice to those who lived in Albania at that time - from poets and teachers to shoe-makers and peasant farmers, and many others whose aspirations were brutally crushed in acts of unimaginable repression - creating a vivid, dynamic and often painful picture of this totalitarian state during the forty years of Hoxha's ruthless dictatorship. Very little emerged from Albania during communist times. With these personal accounts, Rejmer opens a window onto a terrifying period in the country's history. Mud Sweeter than Honey is not only a gripping work of reportage, but also a necessary and unique portrait of a nation. With an Introduction by Tony Barber *Winner of the Polityka Passport Prize**Winner of the Koscielski Award* Translated from the Polish by Zosia Krasodomska-Jones and Antonia Lloyd-Jones

The study of dictatorship in the West has acquired an almost exotic dimension. But authoritarian regimes remain a painful reality for billions of people worldwide who still live under them, their freedoms violated and their rights abused. They are subject to arbitrary arrest, torture, corruption, ignorance, and injustice. What is the nature of dictatorship? How does it take hold? In what conditions and circumstances is it permitted to thrive? And how do dictators retain power, even when reviled and mocked by those they govern? In this deeply considered and at times provocative short work, Alaa Al Aswany tells us that, as with any disease, to understand the syndrome of dictatorship we must first consider the circumstances of its emergence, along with the symptoms and complications it causes in both the people and the dictator.

The fourth edition of Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini: Totalitarianism in the Twentieth Century presents an innovative comparison of the origins, development, and demise of the three forms of totalitarianism that emerged in twentieth-century Europe. * Represents the only book that systematically compares all three infamous dictators of the twentieth century * Provides the latest scholarship on the wartime goals of Hitler and Stalin as well as new information on the disintegration of the Soviet empire * Compares the early lives of Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini, their ideologies, rise to and consolidation of power, and the organization and workings of their dictatorships * Features topics organized by themes rather than strictly chronologically * Includes a wealth of visual material to support the text, as well as a thorough Bibliographical Essay compiled by the author

Authoritarian regimes craft and disseminate reasons, stories, and explanations for why they are entitled to rule. To shield those legitimating messages from criticism, authoritarian regimes also censor information that they find threatening. While committed opponents of the regime may be violently repressed, this book is about how the authoritarian state keeps the majority of its people quiescent by manipulating the ways in which they talk and think about political processes, the authorities, and political alternatives. Using North Korea, Burma (Myanmar) and China as case studies, this book explains how the authoritarian public sphere shapes political discourse in each context. It also examines three domains of potential subversion of legitimating messages: the shadow markets of North Korea, networks of independent journalists in Burma, and the online sphere in China. In addition to making a theoretical contribution to the study of authoritarianism, the book draws upon unique empirical data from fieldwork conducted in the region, including interviews with North Korean defectors in South Korea, Burmese exiles in Thailand, and Burmese in Myanmar who stayed in the country during the military government. When analyzed alongside state-produced media, speeches, and legislation, the material provides a rich understanding of how autocratic legitimation influences everyday discussions about politics in the authoritarian public sphere. Explaining how autocracies manipulate the ways in which their citizens talk and think about politics, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of Asian politics, comparative politics and authoritarian regimes.

Setting Nazi Germany in a European context, this text shows how the Third Reich's abandonment of liberal democracy, decency and tolerance was widespread in Europe at the time. It shows how a radical, pseudo-religious movement seemed to offer salvation to a Germany exhausted by war, depression and inflation.

Visualizing Fascism argues that fascism was not merely a domestic menace in a few European nations, but arose as a genuinely global phenomenon in the early twentieth century. Contributors use visual materials to explore fascism's populist appeal in settings around the world, including China, Japan, South Africa, Slovakia, and Spain. This visual strategy allows readers to see the transnational rise of the right as it fed off the agitated energies of modernity and mobilized shared political and aesthetic tropes. This volume also considers the postwar aftermath as antifascist art forms were depoliticized and repurposed in the West. More commonly, analyses of fascism focus on Italy and Germany alone and on institutions like fascist parties, but that approach truncates our understanding of the way fascism was indebted to colonialism and internationalism with all their attendant grievances and aspirations. Using photography, graphic arts, architecture, monuments, and film-rather than written documents alone-produces a portable concept of fascism, useful for grappling with the upsurge of the global right a century ago-and today. Contributors. Nadya Bair, Paul D. Barclay, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Maggie Clinton, Geoff Eley, Lutz Koepnick, Ethan Mark, Bertrand Metton, Lorena Rizzo, Julia Adeney Thomas, Claire Zimmerman

A groundbreaking history of Europe's "new lefts," from the antifascist 1920s to the anti-establishment 1960s In the 1960s, the radical youth of Western Europe's New Left rebelled against the democratic welfare state and their parents' antiquated politics of reform. It was not the first time an upstart leftist movement was built on the ruins of the old. This book traces the history of neoleftism from its antifascist roots in the first half of the twentieth century, to its postwar reconstruction in the 1950s, to its explosive reinvention by the 1960s counterculture. Terence Renaud demonstrates why the left in Europe underwent a series of internal revolts against the organizational forms of established parties and unions. He describes how small groups of militant youth such as New Beginning in Germany tried to sustain grassroots movements without reproducing the bureaucratic, hierarchical, and supposedly obsolete structures of Social Democracy and Communism. Neoleftist militants experimented with alternative modes of organization such as councils, assemblies, and action committees. However, Renaud reveals that these same militants, decades later, often came to defend the very institutions they had opposed in their youth. Providing vital historical perspective on the challenges confronting leftists today, this book tells the story of generations of antifascists, left socialists, and anti-authoritarians who tried to build radical democratic alternatives to capitalism and kindle hope in reactionary times.

The Pinochet File reveals a record of complicity with atrocity by the U.S. government. The documents, first declassified for the original edition of the book, formed the heart of the campaign to hold Gen. Pinochet accountable for murder, torture and terrorism. The New York Times wrote of the original 2003 edition, 'Thanks to Peter Kornbluh, we have the first complete, almost day-to-day and fully documented record of this sordid chapter in Cold War American History.' With this 40th anniversary edition, the record is even more complete and up-to-date.

"Hello, this is your tour guide speaking. I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome you all to Burma. As you travel through our beautiful country, please do not look beyond the glittering pagodas, do not talk about politics, and please ensure that you do not leave the clearly defined trail. Thank you for your attention and please enjoy your visit."

A joke, yes, but joking about the government in Burma is a criminal offence punishable with seven years hard labor. This book is a traveler's account of his experiences in Burma in trying to get to know Burma and its people without interference from officialdom and the military, and without being steered along the "official" tourist path.

In contrast to previous studies of the South Korea-United States alliance, Uk Heo and Terence Roehrig analyze the bigger picture, including the history, economics, security, alliance structure, politics, and the future of the alliance. Taking alliance theory as a starting point, the authors argue that the alliance provides an ideal case study to examine how the political development and economic growth of junior partners impact an alliance. As South Korea's capabilities and ambitions have grown, the alliance has evolved from an asymmetric regional security relationship to an economic partnership with global interests, while China's rise and North Korea's nuclear development mean that South Korea remains of strategic importance for American interests in East Asia. This book will be read both as a major contribution to Korean studies and the study of alliance politics and theory.

In the town of Balbek the far right are about to seize power. At the local theatre, Aymeric dreams of celebrity; Lucas longs for a liberal revolution; Michael is seduced by the extremists; Juliette Demba is in fear for her life. As this political earthquake ripples through the town, Aymeric must make his choice: resist the forces of hatred or harness them for his own success. Based on the real life story of Gustaf Grundgens, whose dreams of fame led him to betray everything, and at the peak of his career, perform Faust for Hitler, Mephisto [A Rhapsody] is a searing contemporary response to Klaus Mann's banned, and fiercely political cult novel. Samuel Gallet's urgent new play asks: what would you sacrifice to do the right thing?

Understanding Europe's past became an urgent matter with the events of August 1991 in Moscow, in the former Soviet Union. The invasion of Moscow's streets by Russian people rejecting an attempted coup d'etat was the culmination of a process that had been initiated years before and raised crucial questions: To what extent can these events be considered the end of an era stretching from World War I to the 1980s, when Europe experienced many forms of dictatorship? To what extent can the various forms of dictatorship Europe experienced in the twentieth century be grouped together? Can any sort of affinity be established between them?
The new introduction to the paperback edition of this volume in the Memory and Narrative series, Leydesdorff and Crownshaw underline the fundamental importance of the struggle for memory and its meaning. "Memory and Totalitarianism" explores the remembered experiences of individuals living under different totalitarian regimes, and examines the construction of memory in the aftermath of those regimes' collapse. It attempts to situate the findings of oral history in the context of contemporary memory. It wrestles with the most painful memories that Europeans have of this century at the end of the Cold War. These memories compare with oral history's research into such experiences as racist attitudes against blacks in the South, or the cultural and psychological effects of apartheid in South Africa, or the Aborigines' claim to their own history and to a new idea of history in Australia.
Totalitarianisms are products of the twentieth century that go far beyond earlier manifestations of absolutism and autocracy in their effort to completely control political, social, and intellectual life. They were made possible by modern industrialism and technology. Therefore the theme of the book expands to include many other experiences that relate to totalitarian mentalities.
Luisa Passerini is professor of cultural history at the University of Torino and external professor at the European University Institute, Florence. Her present trends of research are: European identity; the historical relationships between the discourse on Europe and the discourse on love; gender and generation as historical categories; memory and subjectivity. Among her recent publications are "Europe in Love, Love in Europe: Imagination and Politics Between the Wars Il mito d'Europa. Radici antiche per nuovi simboli."
Selma Leydesdorff is professor of oral history at the University of Amsterdam. Her publications include "We Lived with Dignity" and (with Kim Lacy Rogers) "Trauma: Life Stories of Survivors."
Richard Crownshaw is a lecturer in the Department of English at Manchester Metropolitan University (UK), where his teaching includes 19th- and 20th-century American literature and representations of the Holocaust. He is also an Associate Fellow of the Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, University of London.

Joseph Stalin's twenty-five year dictatorship is without doubt one of the most controversial periods in the history of the Soviet Union. Stalin and Stalinism examines Stalin's ambiguous personal and political legacy, his achievements, and his crimes - all now the subject of major reappraisal both in the West and in the former Soviet Union.
The second edition of this best-selling pamphlet is fully updated to take in new historical debates and historiographical controversies which have emerged since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and reflects on the ways in which Stalin's legacy still affects attitudes in and towards post-Soviet Russia.