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In this conversation, Matt and Sam range widely, beginning with Sam’s recent NYT review of a book explaining how Hitler “dismantled a democracy in 53 days” then discussing the late, great conservative historian John Lukacs’s Hitler of History, a survey of the many biographies written of the Nazi dictator. What makes for a useful historical analogy, especially in our age of the “fascism debate”? What about the past can we truly understand? And what should induce us to humility? From there, your co-hosts press on to more contemporary matters: Charlie Kirk’s assassination, one year later, and how its consequences seem so different now than in the days after his death; how to know what truly matters now, to say nothing of hindsight; the slopification and inundation of our political consciences; and more!
Sources:
Sam Adler-Bell, “What the Third Reich Can Teach Us About America Today,” New York Times, Sept 1, 2026
Timothy W. Ryback, 53 Days: How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy (2026)
— “How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy in 53 Days,” The Atlantic, Jan 8, 2025
John Lukacs, The Hitler of History (1997)
— The Last European War: September 1939–December 1941 (1976)
— Historical Consciousness: The Remembered Past (1968)
Adam Tooze, The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy (2006)
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