How to Become a Tyrant

Episode 2

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.

Episode 3

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.

Episode 4

Control the Truth

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

Episode 5

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.

Episode 6

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.