How to Become a Tyrant • 2021 • 6 episodes • 2h:44m
Ruling with an iron fist requires an aspiring dictator to know the playbook for absolute power, as history's despots prove in this sardonic docuseries.
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.
S1E1 • 2021 • History
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.
S1E2 • 2021 • History
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.
S1E3 • 2021 • History
Through public relations spin, revisionist history and censorship. Soviet autocrat Joseph Stalin found a certain flexibility with the truth useful.
S1E4 • 2021 • History
Free speech? Right to assembly? Rebel-turned-dictator Muammar Gaddafi realized that civil liberties had to go when reshaping society. But he got soft.
S1E5 • 2021 • History
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.
S1E6 • 2021 • History