Everyday Life in Mass Dictatorship

Oppression and violence are often cited as the pivotal aspects of modern dictatorships, but it is the collusion of large majorities that enable these regimes to function. The desire for a better life and a powerful national, if not imperial community provide the basis for the many forms of people's cooperation explored in this volume.

Alf Lüdtke is retired from the Max-Planck-Institute for History, in Göttingen, Germany, and the University of Erfurt, Germany, where he is now Honorarprofessor. He has held Visiting Professorships at universities in the U.S. (Princeton University, the University of Chicago, the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor), Israel, and South Korea. He researches domination and violence, transformations of industrial work, the emergence of 'modern' forms of the visual, and the history of the everyday. Recent publications include: Unsettling History: Archiving and Narrating in Historiography (co-editor); Istorija povsednevnosti v Germanii; Kolonialgeschichten (co-editor); and Polizei, Gewalt und Staat im 20: Jahrhundert (co-editor).