by Ruth Ben-Ghiat | Jan 15, 2016 | Forecasts
Huffington Post, January 15, 2016 Cults of personality: the term might evoke dictators like Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, and Kim Jong-un today. Yet cults of personality can flourish in a variety of political contexts, as long as there is...
by Ruth Ben-Ghiat | Nov 4, 2015 | Forecasts
CNN.com, November 4, 2015 On Tuesday, Donald Trump, who would like to be our President, retweeted a message about Jeb Bush. It featured a swastika among its gallery of Bush-bashing images. And with this tweet, Trump has outdone himself in doing whatever he can to stay...
by Ruth Ben-Ghiat | Sep 18, 2015 | Donald Trump And the GOP
CNN.com, September 17, 2015 Should people living in America speak English? Should they be derided, viewed with suspicion, or even asked to leave, if they primarily speak a different language? Judging by the CNN debate on Wednesday night, Republican and conservative...
by Ruth Ben-Ghiat | Sep 3, 2015 | Images Tell The Story
CNN.com, September 3, 2015 Images of migrants’ suffering, and of humanitarian rescue, have filled our news feeds for more than a year now. Men, women, children — more than 300,000 on the move so far this year — fleeing war, poverty, political...
by Ruth Ben-Ghiat | May 8, 2015 | War
CNN.com, May 8, 2015 World War II’s end happened over time. Germany unconditionally surrendered to the Allies on May 7, 1945 (it was announced the next day, May 8, on what would be known as Victory in Europe Day — or V-E Day), but Italy had been liberated...
by Ruth Ben-Ghiat | Apr 22, 2015 | Global Authoritarianism
Geography is, in part, destiny for Italy: The country will always be a bridge between Africa and Europe, as the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the Mediterranean so starkly shows. A surge of refugees this year, usually transported by smugglers on overcrowded vessels,...
