Exciting news: We just publicly released a ten-lecture course I taught at the University of Toronto this past year called, “Hitler and Stalin Today.” Consider this a public resource for students, researchers, and anyone interested in understanding the relationship between history and contemporary democracy.

Throughout the ten lectures, I examine the Nazi and Soviet responses to the new globalized world they shared. The course begins with the colonial background that made totalitarianism possible, and which remains an essential element of our politics now. Their ideologies are described as worldviews and as practical politics, with an emphasis on the reasons for their appeal. Attention to their policies of mass killing, essential events of twentieth-century history, instructs us about how “it” can happen here. The study of dissident thought helps us to see connections between historical predicaments and our own, and instructs us about possible reactions as individuals and as citizens.

The first lecture, “What is history?” is available on my Substack. You can find more on YouTube at the Munk School account. Hope you enjoy!