Time and time again, history has witnessed the rise of political
leaders who have turned into tyrants.  Hitler, Stalin, Mao, by their
ideas and actions, have defined much of the past century. Less
renowned leaders, in all corners of the world, continue to preach
hate towards other people, and to define politics as the struggle
between good and evil.  What enables these leaders to harness the
forces of conflict?  What is their power to mobilize entire
communities, even nations, to perpetrate mass murder and genocide?

To answers these and similar questions we examine the lives and the
deeds of the most important tyrants of the 20th century.  We will
study not only Hitler and Stalin, but also some of their more recent
imitators, the little Hitlers and little Stalins of North Korea,
Iraq, Yugoslavia and other tyrannies.  We will look at the lives of
the leaders and the conditions that allowed them to attain political
power, the ideas advocated by the tyrannical leaders, and at the
consequences of tyranny – the politics of evil and violence.

Seminar requirements include active participation in class
discussions and completion of class assignments, a biographical
paper on one of the political tyrants, a paper comparing the
political ideas of two such leaders, and a final exam.  The required
book is by Daniel Chirot, Modern Tyrants: The Power and Prevalence
of Evil in Our Age (Princeton UP, 1994).