Ideas from the CBC: The Authoritarian Personality

The Authoritarian Personality was a groundbreaking study conducted in the wake of the Second World War by a group of scholars – two of whom escaped antisemitic persecution of Third Reich – who wanted to understand why so many people had been drawn to fascist leaders. When the study was published in 1950, it rocked the academic world, but before long it fell out of favor during an era of strong economic growth and liberal optimism in the late twentieth century. Now a new generation of scholars is reviving the lessons of The Authoritarian Personality to understand the politics of our time.