May 20 – Ruth Ben-Ghiat with Patt Morrison
The Role of Fear in the Decline of Democracy: The Power, Politics and Impact of Fear as a Tool of Political Persuasion
Ruth Ben-Ghiat
Ruth Ben-Ghiat is Professor of History at New York University, specializing in authoritarianism, propaganda, and resistance to tyranny, and a Senior Fellow at the Charles F. Kettering Foundation. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller “Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present” and several books on Italian fascism, and the publisher of the Substack newsletter Lucid on threats to democracy. She is a consultant on television and film productions, including Guillermo del Toro’s Academy-winning 2022 movie “Pinocchio” and the 2024 Netflix docuseries “Hitler and the Nazis: Evil on Trial.”
Patt Morrison
Patt Morrison has a share of two Pulitzer Prizes as a longtime Los Angeles Times writer and columnist. As a public television and radio broadcaster, she has won six Emmys and a dozen Golden Mike awards. Her first book, “Rio LA,” about the Los Angeles River, was a bestseller. Her most recent book is, “Don’t Stop the Presses! Truth, Justice, and the American Newspaper.”