Democracy and Dictatorship – A Resource List

Brazilian National Archives, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Soon after the current (2017) version of the NSW Stage 6 Modern History syllabus was published, I wrote a brief piece identifying some resources I found useful for the Core topic, Power and Authority in the Modern World. This was by no means comprehensive, but a small collection of resources I found valuable in updating my own understanding of the main themes of the topic. Now that there is a new (2024) version of the NSW Stage 6 Modern History syllabus that we will be teaching from 2027 with a first round of HSC examinations due at the end of 2028, I thought it was timely to publish an updated list for the slightly remodelled Core now called ‘Democracy and Dictatorship, 1919-39’.

In updating this list, I have restructured the themes to be more clearly in line with the new Democracy and Dictatorship topic. Some resources from the old list have been retained because I still think they are relevant and helpful, but I have also tried to consider newer material to ensure that the insights are fresh.

I should also point out at the beginning, that the following resources reflect personal tastes and reading habits as much as anything. This is not an argument for ‘the best books’ for Democracy and Dictatorship that everyone needs to consult, it is an outline of some resources I have found helpful and interesting. One of the most enjoyable aspects of studying History is that we all read and explore different kinds of material which uniquely shapes the stories we tell, the anecdotes we use and the analysis we prioritise. I am sure others will have found, read and used a wide range of other material than is mentioned here and I hope that can be shared too.

1. The Paris Peace Conference and its Consequences

Alan Sharp,  ‘The Paris Peace Conference and its Consequences’, published on 1914-1918 Online: International Encyclopaedia of the First World War, accessed 1 April 2026

This article remains a strong introduction to the Paris Peace Conference and its consequences. It is obviously draw from Sharp's larger work covered in a book-length study of the Paris Peace Conference which has been published and re-published several times since it appeared in the 1990s.

'The Best Intentions: The Paris Peace Conference' documentary (January 2025)

This brief documentary would be useful to show in class as a complement to other readings on the Paris Peace Conference and its consequences. It includes commentary from Alan Sharp, Margaret MacMillan and other historians.

2. The Rise of Dictatorships in the Interwar Period

Some of the resources listed in section 3 below (‘The Interwar Dictatorships’) provide reasonable coverage on the conditions enabling the rise of dictators and remain relevant to Democracy and Dictatorship. There have, however, also been some more recent and more particular publications that provide different perspectives on the rise of dictators in the interwar period. Two examples are briefly described below.

Stephen Lee, European Dictatorships: 1918 – 1945 (4th Ed.), Routledge, 2010 (this would also be good to use for 'The Nazi regime to 1939').

I came across this book in 2016-17 and used parts of it when I taught a comparative dictatorships course at university undergraduate level. Although it has some obvious limitations as a generality book for a broad audience, I still find it a helpful reference point for foundational coverage of a range of European dictatorships in the interwar period, and the interwar period more generally.

For an introductory reading on key themes of dictatorships in the interwar period it is, however, still a useful starting point. Moreover, in contrast to the two resources that follow in this section, Lee’s work is relatively readable as it lacks some of the more complex and abstract ideas associated with political science and sociology. Of particular interest for the ‘conditions that enabled the rise of dictators’ theme is chapter 1, ‘The Setting for dictatorship’, in which he discusses six major themes:

• The period before 1914 (longer-term trends and causes)

• The First World War

• Peace settlements

• Crisis of democracy

• Modernity

• Economic crises

My suggestion would be to read Lee’s coverage of the rise of dictators (or a similar text) before moving on to more specific and complex resources such as those outlined below.

Agnes Cornell, Jørgen Møller, Svend-Erik Skaaning, ‘The Real Lessons of the Interwar Years’, Journal of Democracy, Vol. 28, No. 3, July 2017, pp. 14-28

This suggestion comes with a warning: it is more specific and complex than a book like Lee’s general study of dictatorships. It includes a lengthy discussion of both the collapse of democracy, but also its resilience in some parts of Europe. The arguments and ideas are not all directly relevant to the HSC Modern History Core, but they do generally help consolidate a more complex picture of the period because the article is not simply focussed on the reasons why dictatorships emerged, but also why some democracies survived. In doing this, it sets up some interesting, though contestable, contrasts between political systems that collapsed into overt dictatorship, and others in which democracy survived.

In the view of the authors, their analysis rescues the interwar period from a more one-dimensional view of crisis and collapse. They write:

The lesson we draw is that scholars and commentators have read interwar patterns of regime change in an overly pessimistic way. There is room for a more optimistic interpretation that emphasizes the stability of the established democratic regimes in the face of multiple crises. A systematic analysis of patterns of interwar regime change shows that once democracy has taken root, it tends to be remarkably stable, even in very difficult circumstances. (p. 26)

Although this conclusion could be read as overly optimistic, it is still worth considering and some of the particular information outlined in the article adds depth to an analysis of the conditions that enabled the rise of dictatorships after the First World War.

There are, it should be noted, good grounds for caution in accepting the thesis put forward by the authors of this piece. Not least, this is because their definition of ‘democracy’ is extremely generous and could easily be challenged (in fact, David Art’s book discussed below offers an alternative analysis of the place of democracy in the 1920s that is worth considering).

David Art, The Resilience of the Old Regime: Paths Around Democracy in Europe, 1832-1919, Cambridge University Press, 2026

This suggestion comes with a strong warning: the book is complex and primarily focused on issues that are indirectly related to the HSC Modern Core. I would only consider reading this once you feel generally quite confident in explaining the rise of interwar dictatorships and are looking for something to extend and challenge more conventional arguments about the post-Paris period. It may also be a resource that appeals to teachers (and students) of HSC History Extension who are keen to explore a more historiographical perspective on some of the issues of the period.

Essentially, Art’s argument is that the ‘old regime’, characterised by more authoritarian political structures (including monarchy and oligarchy), was far more durable in the face of democratic challenge in the modern world. In contrast to a range of other scholars, he argues that democracy was far from accepted or the ‘norm’ by 1914 and that many regimes had successfully found ways of circumventing democratising pressures. In a telling summary of 11 European nations, Art claims that only two could be described comfortably as democratic by 1915: Norway and Denmark. France and Switzerland, he claims, were ‘patriarchal democracies’ while Belgium, the UK, Sweden and the Netherlands were all oligarchies. (pp. 42-43). How he reaches this conclusion is an interesting, but reasonably dense discussion of historical, sociological and political science ideas.

For HSC Modern History, the main practical implication is to emphasise an important theme into the ‘conditions that enabled the rise of dictatorships’ that might be loosely called ‘counter-revolution’. Art argues that authoritarian forms of government were far stronger and more widely supported by 1914 than is often assumed, and this helps to explain the challenges for democracy in the interwar period.

To reiterate the warning, I found this book quite interesting and informative, but the return on investment is much lower than the previous two resources suggested in this section. It is a resource for extension reading rather than introductory or foundational reading and it will benefit teachers most who already have a strong working knowledge of 19th century European history, political science and the rise of dictatorships following the First World War.

3. The Interwar Dictatorships

One important change in the move from ‘Power and Authority’ (2017) to ‘Democracy and Dictatorship’ (2024) is that, from the first HSC cycle for this new syllabus beginning in term four of 2027, we are no longer required to study Russia, Italy and Japan as the non-German dictatorships. We are only required to study ‘key features of [any] TWO dictatorships other than Germany that emerged in the interwar period’. There appears to be no reason why teachers could not pick two regimes from the current (2017) list required–Russia, Italy and Japan–since all fit the definition of ‘authoritarian’ and ‘militarist’ regimes discussed in the preamble to the Democracy and Dictatorship topic. There is, however, some greater flexibility of choice in which examples of interwar dictatorships teachers could select.

The following resources remain quite useful starting points in exploring interwar dictatorships and offering teachers with coverage of a range of different regimes in the period. Depending on which regimes schools decide to study, however, other resources may obviously be required to supplement material of this nature.

• Richard Evans, ‘The Age of Dictatorship: Europe 1918 – 1989’, lecture series presented at Gresham College, London, 2006 (lectures: Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini)

• Stephen Lee, European Dictatorships: 1918 – 1945 (4th Ed.), Routledge, 2010 (this would also be good to use for 'The Nazi regime to 1939').

• Bruce Pauley, Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini: Totalitarianism in the Twentieth Century (4th Ed.), John Wiley and Sons Inc, 2014 (this would also be good to use for 'The Nazi regime to 1939').

• Ian Kershaw, To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949, Penguin, 2015

• Sheri Berman, Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe: From the Ancien Régime to the Present Day, Oxford University Press, 2019. The most relevant material in this book is the chapters on the transition to dictatorship in Italy in the 1920s and the collapse of Weimar Germany. Some of the introductory and broader analytical ideas about the ‘lessons of dictatorship’ are also interesting, but they are more for extension reading and beyond the immediate needs of the topic.

My older blog piece on Power and Authority in the Modern World also included a list of suggested resources on interwar Japan which remains relevant if you plan to cover Japan as an example of an interwar dictatorship in this updated Core topic.

4. The Collapse of German Democracy, 1919-33

Agence Rol, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Since the publication of the previous syllabus in 2017, there have been a range of new books published specifically about the Weimar period in Germany. It seems to reflect a deep concern in the mid-2020s with the state of democracy in many parts of the world, including in many European nations and the United States. In that sense, it is regrettable that this material seems so pertinent and topical to our own times.

The following is a list of some recent books that have been published covering the Weimar period. Not all of them provide radically different insights into the period, or the reasons for the collapse of democracy in Germany by the early 1930s. They do, however, collectively provide some fresh narratives, anecdotes and perspectives on the key events and themes. Here, I have also selected some books written by journalists to expand the type of histories that can be explored.

Some of these histories are long and extremely detailed. For example, McDonough’s The Weimar Years runs to well over 600 pages and both Jahner and Sebestyan’s books reach nearly 500 pages. This makes it quite impractical to consider reading them all and the other point to remember in the context of HSC Modern History is that many of these, particularly those written by journalists such as Volker Ulrich, are narrative-driven. There is therefore a reasonable amount of work to be done to get usable extracts for classes that need to focus on the political, economic and social factors that explain the collapse of democracy in Germany by the early 1930s.

Nevertheless, even if you do not plan to read many/any of these books, it is worth knowing about some of them in brief, if only to point out to students the flourishing literature on Weimar in the mid-2020s. This may be where reading some decent reviews would suffice in getting a quick snapshot of the key ideas offered by a range of authors and some of their general points of difference.

• Eric Weitz, Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy, Princeton University Press, 2007 

• Frank McDonough, The Weimar Years: The Rise and Fall, Bloomsbury, 2023

• Harald Jahner, Vertigo: The Rise and Fall of Weimar Germany, WH Allen, 2024

• Volker Ulrich, Fateful Hours: The Collapse of the Weimar Republic, WW Norton & Company, 2025 

• Victor Sebestyen, Weimar Germany: Death of a Democracy, W&N, 2026

5. The Nazi Regime, 1933-39

I would argue that many of the resources I noted as useful for exploring the Nazi Regime content in my 2018 post are still relevant to the new Democracy and Dictatorship study and are worth consulting.

For this update, I have selected more recent material that I have found useful in grappling with Nazi ideology and its implications for Germany in the 1930s as this seems to be a more  pronounced theme in the updated Modern History syllabus. In addition, I have selected material that I consider to be generally accessible on these themes. There are many excellent books covering Nazi ideology and policy, but some are deeply complex and too detailed for what is required in the context of the NSW Modern History at HSC level.

Alan Steinweiss, The Peoples’ Dictatorship: A History of Nazi Germany, Cambridge University Press, 2023

This book is one of the most useful recent resources I have come across for the Nazi Germany content in Democracy and Dictatorship. The main strengths of the book are that: a. It is relatively brief and concise; and, b. It offers a fresh synthesis of current scholarship on Nazi Germany in readable form. Although I did not find much in the book that was ‘new’, the way Steinwess brings together many themes of the current scholarship on Nazi Germany made this a lively book without being bogged down in detail. Steinwess also writes in an accessible way such that conscientious students looking for some extension reading could easily work through key sections of this text.

As a quick taste, in discussing the Nazi’s rise to power, Steinwess writes:

Hitler and his movement rose to power largely on their ability to exploit the anxieties and hopes of Germans in the very specific political and economic circumstances of the Weimar Republic. Germans who joined or voted for the Nazi Party before 1933 did not necessarily understand themselves to be embracing an ideology in its entirety. Some were attracted to specific elements of the ideology but not to others. Many were not ideological at all, but were attracted by the dynamism of the movement, the charisma of its leader, and emotional appeals to fears and resentments that were widespread in German society. Still others supported Nazism for pragmatic reasons of professional or economic self-interest. Although Hitler and his party, once in charge of the country, pursued long-term goals that were anchored in a worldview that they had long openly espoused, ideological doctrine had been but one among many factors that had brought them into power. (p. 22)

Though not necessarily ‘new’, I think the way Steinwess puts these ideas together captures important nuances, and the writing is clear and accessible, even to many students working at HSC level.

The book has a total of ten chapters, but for Democracy and Dictatorship only the introduction and chapters 1-6 are directly relevant (the remaining chapters cover the Second World War). Chapters 1-6 cover the following:

1. The idea of Nazism

2. The triumph of Nazism

3. The Nazi Dictatorship

4. The Nazi economy, 1933-39

5. Nazi society, 1933-39

6. Policing the Boundaries of the People’s Community

So, at 294 pages in total, the relevant chapters do not make up an unreasonable amount of text to read in a relatively short turnaround, and they are all directly relevant to the (2024) HSC Modern History syllabus.

If I were to suggest one general scholarly book on Nazi Germany to read if you are new to teaching this topic, this would probably be it. Along with a strong student-oriented textbook, this would provide a well-rounded foundation for understanding the Nazi regime between 1933 and 1939 and provide a good launchpad for further reading if it is needed. The following suggestions would function more as resources to consult after working with a book like this.

Andrew Bonnell, Revolutions in Modern German History, Bloomsbury Academic, 2025 (Chapter 5. ‘The Nazi takeover of power, 1933: National revolution or counter-revolution?’, pp. 101-117)

This chapter from Andrew Bonnell’s recent book on German revolutions is centred on a highly practical questions for Democracy and Dictatorship’s coverage of Nazi Germany, 1933-39. As he states in the opening paragraph:

Was the takeover of power by Hitler’s National Socialist (Nazi) Party in 1933 a revolution, as the party’s rhetoric sometimes claimed, and was Hitler a revolutionary? Or was the Nazi regime instead a pre-emptive counter-revolution, carried out in an alliance with representatives of the German elites? Did Nazi policies revolutionize German society, intentionally or otherwise, or were the changes that were observable in the decades after 1945 more the product of longer-term trends of an industrializing society, accelerated by the after-effects of the comprehensive defeat of the ‘Third Reich’ in 1945? (p. 101)

To my mind, these could help shape an overarching approach to the study of the content focused on Nazi Germany (1933-39) in Democracy and Dictatorship. It would certainly help students if they are asked to respond to a question such as the following in an HSC examination: Assess the impact of Nazism on German society between 1933 and 1939. It would also help in exploring more specific themes such as the impact of Nazi ideology and policy on German women in the period.

In grappling with these questions, Bonnell discusses a wide range of themes relevant to the syllabus including women, workers (and the economy) and youth. Again, not all the content offered is ‘new’, but it is fresh and synthesised in a way that demonstrates how a student could begin to analyse some of these themes in an intelligent and nuanced way. Parts of this chapter may be challenging to read for some students, but the chapter would certainly make helpful preparation for teachers trying to make sense of the syllabus content. An added bonus is that it is only 16 pages, so it can be read quickly.

Claus-Christian W. Szejnmann, ‘National Socialist Ideology’ in Baranowski, S, et. al. (eds), A Companion to Nazi Germany, John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2018, pp. 77-94

There has been a deeply complex debate about Nazi ideology unravelling for decades. Many teachers who are across the general historiography of Nazi Germany will know many of the references well and be familiar with expressions like ‘intentionalism’ and ‘functionalism’. This can make it daunting to address a broad theme such as the ‘nature of Nazi ideology’ in the context of an HSC class in which time is tight. The obvious dangers are to explore Nazi ideology in either an overcomplicated manner, or to simplify it beyond recognition.

Alan Steinwess’s coverage of Nazi ideology (see above) in The Peoples’ Dictatorship (2023) provides a strong foundational reading on this, but Claus-Christian W. Szejnmann’s chapter in A Companion to Nazi Germany offers something more analytical and complex – another useful extension reading on the general theme of Nazi ideology.

There are several strengths to this chapter for a teacher preparing to cover Democracy and Dictatorship in HSC Modern History. First, it provides a reasonable overview of the historiography of Nazi ideology without getting lost in the details. Second, it provides some useful conceptual ideas for making sense of Nazi ideology in a way that is honest about its diversity and complexity, while also avoiding the conclusion that it is simply too complex to summarise.

In addition, Szejnmann offers some useful analysis of the ‘nature’ of Nazi ideology that goes beyond a simple description or outline of basic ideas. For example, he clearly explains the way Nazi ideology offered both a critique of Weimar democracy and presented a set of ‘solutions’ to the crisis it had diagnosed. This, he shows, was widely appealing and helped improve the Nazis’ political standing from at least the late 1920s. He writes:

At a time when many contemporaries diagnosed a society facing a profound crisis, a plethora of values, views, and visions for a better future circulated. During the new age of the masses, every proponent of alternative ideologies with real ambition to win mass support had to explain the ills in society and project a vision for a better future that resonated with contemporaries. Coming to power, and then staying in power, required legitimacy. The Nazis, like communists and other extremists, expressed a powerful critique of the contemporary world they lived in and promised to create something that functioned better than the existing liberal system, which seemed outdated and bankrupt, they proposed to create societies that were fairer and more just. (p. 77)

This is another resource most suited to those generally familiar with a more foundational understanding of Nazi ideology and it is unlikely to provide an easy set of notes or extracts for an HSC class, but I found it a helpful read to improve my own understanding of a variety of perspectives on Nazi ideology, and thinking of better ways to explain this to students.

Robert Gellately, Hitler’s True Believers: How Ordinary People Became Nazis, Oxford University Press, 2020

The central question that animates this book is: how did people in Germany transition from being ‘ordinary’ citizens to dedicated Nazis in such a short turnaround? It is a good question that gives the book a clear focus and, although I don’t agree with all his ideas, I generally find Robert Gellately to be an author who writes quite clearly – he is one of those historians who seems to teach through his writing which I appreciate.

One of the most useful aspects of this book for HSC Modern History in my opinion is Gellately’s discussion of Nazi ideology. There is, for example, a reasonable discussion of the ideas that were central to Nazism in the introduction where he synthesises a range of themes that help clarify the broad vision at the heart of the Nazi project. In this, Gellately stresses the importance of taking seriously the Nazis’ ‘socialist’ ideas, but he does a reasonable job of presenting these ideas without collapsing into the myth that Nazism was essentially a movement of the political left. He explains, for example, that: ‘the Nazis emphasized all kinds of socialist attitudes, … [but this was] … a socialism “cleansed” of international Marxism and communism’. (p. 2)

From there, the book could easily be used selectively for the purposes of HSC Modern History. For example, chapters 7-10 cover central themes relevant to Democracy and Dictatorship including:

• The Volksgemeinschaft

• National unity

• Cultural revolution

• Racial ideology

Julia Boyd and Angelika Patel, A Village in the Third Reich: How Ordinary Lives Were Transformed By the Rise of Fascism, Elliot and Thompson, 2022

I found this a fascinating book and one of the most interesting reads on Nazi Germany in recent years. Generally, I find many books on Nazism lack genuinely new insights and perspectives and many seem to go over well-worn themes and issues – they are often enjoyable reads, but do not provide much that is genuine ‘new’ if you have been following this historiography for some time. A Village in the Third Reich provided something genuinely new, for me at least, and that is a small-scale perspective on the rise and impacts of Nazism by focusing on a single village in southern Germany.

There are two obvious strengths to this book. One is that Boyd writes in an accessible manner and, given that the book is for a generalist audience, the book is quick to read. A second strength is that the focus on the local level makes the book more intimate and personal–you get to know real characters from the town and follow their experiences with Nazism–and this makes the narrative and analysis easy to follow. 

For me the book did not provide new insights into the general features of Nazism, but it did provide a rich set of specific examples that help understand the way in which the regime functioned at a local level and how it shaped the lives of many different people. There would be an excellent opportunity to use aspects of A Village in the Third Reich in Democracy and Dictatorship to draw out examples of key Nazi policies, anecdotes and even some primary sources that Boyd quotes throughout.

Essentially, this book is a microhistory, so its clearest strengths lie in the close perspective it offers of Nazism ‘from below’. With any microhistory, the major limitation is often how comfortably the analysis of the ‘case study’ can be applied to wider scales. This book is best used in conjunction with other texts such as Steinwess’s general macro-level history of the Third Reich to ensure that the macro- and micro-level stories and analysis complement each other.

Conclusion

There are obviously many other recent publications that could be worth consulting. I have not, for example, yet read the latest book by Richard Evans, Hitler's People: The Faces of the Third Reich (2024) and there is now a mountain of material circulating about dictatorships, authoritarianism and democracy given the current political crisis we find ourselves in. Still, the resources I have outlined here, despite reflecting personal interests as much as anything scholarly, would be useful reading, particularly for pre-service and early career teachers trying to ensure that their knowledge of the themes central to Democracy and Dictatorship is up to date.