Photo left by John Partipilo/ Tennessee Lookout ©2024; photo right by Fotoarchiv für Zeitgeschichte/Archiv, 1935, via AP. Illustration by Neil Freese
After the mass death and destruction of World War I, with their economies shredded by inflation and unemployment, Italy and Germany turned from democracy to dictatorships. UC Berkeley scholars see troubling parallels in contemporary American democracy.
It was a time of historic change, and society was buckling under the stress. There had been a war, then a deadly pandemic. Economic crisis was constant: Racing inflation, unemployment and changes in technology provoked extreme economic insecurity…