Whittemore Library: Totalitarianism, Authoritarianism & Fascism: Why & How They Occur

The Psychology

"About a third of any population wants authoritarian leaders, they want their strongman to tell them what to do."

- Heidi Siegmund Cuda

Who Goes Nazi?
"It is an interesting and somewhat macabre parlor game to play at a large gathering of one’s acquaintances: to speculate who in a showdown would go Nazi. By now, I think I know. I have gone through the experience many times—in Germany, in Austria, and in France. I have come to know the types: the born Nazis, the Nazis whom democracy itself has created, the certain-to-be fellow-travelers. And I also know those who never, under any conceivable circumstances, would become Nazis..."
Why Do Some People Think Fascism Is Greatest Expression of Democracy?
"As a political philosopher, I spend a lot of time studying those who believe in authoritarian, totalitarian and other repressive forms of government, on both the right and the left. Some of these figures don’t technically identify themselves as fascists, but they share important similarities in their ways of thinking..."
The Mass Psychology of Fascism
"Writing in the years 1930-33, Reich applies his theories of human character-structure to dissecting and analysing what he realised was the menacing social situation. Fascism, he argues, does not spring exclusively either from the economic factors, or from the activities of political leaders. Much rather, it is the collective expression of average human beings, whose primary biological needs have been ruthlessly crushed by an authoritarian and sexually inhibited society..."

Deep Dives

Losing Reality: On Cults, Cultism, and the Mindset of Political and Religious Zealotry

"Robert Jay Lifton, the National Book Award–winning psychiatrist, historian, and public intellectual proposes a radical idea: that the psychological relationship between extremist political movements and fanatical religious cults may be much closer than anyone thought."

Why We Elect Narcissists and Sociopaths--And How We Can Stop!

"The bestselling author and therapist describes how electing high-conflict personalities-from Hitler and Mao to Putin and Trump-threatens democracy."

Women of the Third Reich: From Camp Guards to Combatants

"The women of the Third Reich were a vital part in a complex and vilified system. What was their role within its administration, the concentration camps, and the Luftwaffe and militia units and how did it evolve in the way it did?"

The Origins of Totalitarianism

"Hannah Arendt's definitive work on totalitarianism--an essential component of any study of twentieth-century political history--now with a new introduction by Anne Applebaum."

Judge Thy Neighbor: Denunciations in the Spanish Inquisition, Romanov Russia, and Nazi Germany

"From the Spanish Inquisition to Nazi Germany to the United States today, ordinary people have often chosen to turn in their neighbors to the authorities. What motivates citizens to inform on the people next door?"

Dictators and Autocrats: Securing Power Across Global Politics

"In order to truly understand the emergence, endurance, and legacy of autocracy, this volume of engaging essays explores how autocratic power is acquired, exercised, and transferred or abruptly ended through the careers and politics of influential figures in more than 20 countries and six regions."

Fascism and Democracy in the Human Mind

"Confronted with acts of violence and evil on scales grand and small, we ask ourselves, baffled, how such horrors can happen--how human beings seemingly like ourselves can commit such atrocities. The answer, I. W. Charny suggests in this important new work, may be found in each one of us, in the different and distinct ways in which we organize our minds."

Desolation and Enlightenment: Political Knowledge After Total War, Totalitarianism, and the Holocaust

"...a group of leading scholars who had been perilously close to the war's devastation joined others ... in an effort to ... discover the sources of twentieth-century horror and the potentialities of the modern state in the wake of desolation."

The Rhetoric of Fascism

"The Rhetoric of Fascism defines and interprets the common persuasive devices that characterize fascist discourse to understand the nature of its enduring appeal."

Conformity

"An understanding of conformity sheds new light on many issues confronting us today: the role of social media, the rise of fake news, the growth of authoritarianism, the success of Donald Trump, the functions of free speech, debates over immigration and the Supreme Court, and much more ... when individuals suppress their own instincts about what is true and what is right, it can lead to significant social harm."

Trendy Fascism: White Power Music and the Future of Democracy

"Explores how white supremacist groups use popular music and culture to teach hate and promote violence."

The Authoritarian Dynamic

"What is the basis for intolerance? This book addresses that question by developing a universal theory about what causes intolerance of difference in general, which includes racism, political intolerance (e.g. restriction of free speech), moral intolerance (e.g. homophobia, supporting censorship, opposing abortion) and punitiveness ... all these seemingly disparate attitudes are principally caused by just two factors: individuals' innate psychological predispositions to intolerance ('authoritarianism') interacting with changing conditions of societal threat."

The Perils of Populism

"The Perils of Populism shows how a feminist lens can help diagnose the factors behind the global rise of right-wing populism and teach us how to resist the threat it presents to democracy."