How to Become a Tyrant

E1. Seize Power

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.

★ 7.7

E2. 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.

★ 7.3

E3. 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.

★ 7.7

E4. Control the Truth

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

★ 7.7

E5. 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.

★ 7.3

E6. 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.

★ 7.7