Marci Shore - 20th Century Totalitarianism

Marci Shore, a historian specializing in Eastern European intellectual history and 20th-century totalitarianism, teaches at the Munk School at the University of Toronto as of July 2025. Drawing on her deep knowledge of Nazism and Stalinism, she reflects on the dangers of authoritarian tendencies in contemporary politics, particularly in the U.S. She identifies recognizable patterns such as cults of personality, scapegoating, historical mythologizing, and the suppression of truth—all of which contribute to societal atomization and enable tyranny. Shore emphasizes that solidarity is the only antidote to this fragmentation, urging people to speak out on behalf of the vulnerable. She concludes with a quote from Hannah Arendt, underscoring that even small acts of resistance matter: “Under conditions of terror, most people will comply, but some will not. Humanly speaking," she said," no more is required and no more can reasonably be asked for this planet to remain a place fit for human habitation."