Dictators

Matthew Sweet on Chaplin's 1941 film and rising populism today with guests including Francesca Santoro L'hoir who acted alongside Chaplin as a child plus Ece Temelkuran, Peter Pomerantsev and Frank Dikotter.

Dutch Historian Frank Dikotter, who teaches in China, has published books on The Cultural Revolution, Mao's Famine and most recently How to Be a Dictator: the Cult of Personality in the Twentieth Century which looks at Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Ceausescu, “Papa Doc” Duvalier, Kim Il Sung and Mengistu Haile Mariam

The Turkish journalist, novelist and poet Ece Temelkuran is the author of How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship

Peter Pomerantsev's books include Nothing is True and Everything is Possible and This is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality. You can hear Peter taking part in our Free Thinking discussion about George Orwell's novel 1984 if you look up the collection of Landmarks of Culture on the Free Thinking website or use this link https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0005nrl

Producer: Torquil MacLeod