Seasons & episodes

S1 · E1Seize Power 2021-07-09 · 31 min＋

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.

S1 · E2Crush Your Rivals 2021-07-09 · 27 min＋

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.

S1 · E3Reign Through Terror 2021-07-09 · 28 min＋

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.

S1 · E4Control the Truth 2021-07-09 · 27 min＋

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

S1 · E5Create a New Society 2021-07-09 · 26 min＋

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

S1 · E6Rule Forever 2021-07-09 · 30 min＋

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.