'Stand by for fireworks as it hits the shelves' SUNDAY TIMES

'If Orwell were with us today, he'd be writing books like this' PATRICK RADDEN KEEFE 

 'Breath-taking and jaw-dropping' PETER FRANKOPAN

'A true-life thriller' ANNE APPLEBAUM

From the bestselling author of Kleptopia comes a true story about Cuckooland – a world where the rich can buy everything – including the truth.

Everywhere, the powerful are making a renewed claim to the greatest prize of all: to own the truth. The power to choose what you want reality to be and impose that reality on the world.

For three years, Tom Burgis followed a lead that took him deeper and deeper into Cuckooland – the place where the rich own the truth. The trail snaked from the Kremlin to Kathmandu, Stockholm to the Steppe, from a blood-soaked town square in Uzbekistan to a royal retreat in Scotland. Burgis hunted down oligarchs, developed secret sources and traced vast sums of money flowing between multinational corporations, ex-Soviet dictators and the west’s ruling elites. And he found one man who wanted the power to bend reality to his will.

This book tells an astonishing story: a tale of secrets and lies that reveals how fragile that truth can be. Whether it’s in Kazakh torture chambers or the UK’s High Court, the lords of Cuckooland are seizing control of the truth. They decree what stories may be told about war and money and power, what we are permitted to know – and more importantly, what we are not.

From the bestselling author of Kleptopia, Cuckooland is a deeply reported work of non-fiction that reads like a thriller. It is a story of how globalisation and technological revolution have combined to imperil the foundation of free societies: that the truth belongs to the many, not the few.

Cuckooland: Where the Rich Own the Truth, By Tom Burgis, Read by Joe Eyre

This third movement performed at MMF 2024 explores group adoption of evil ideas.
The tubular bells introduce the rhythms of 2 dictators’ speech rhythms, one from the 1920’s to 1940’s (in his rile-them-up cadences, not his regular speaking voice) and the other from 2016 to present (Tremendous; Very Bad, Lock Them Up).  The other instruments (oboe, bassoon, piano, and cello) and at times the harp, alternate between their own tunes, protest themes, and the martial rhythms of the sample dictators’ speeches.  There are 2 different protest songs (a Yiddish melody from Es Brent, by Mordechai Gebirtig, used as a protest during Hitler’s persecution and extermination of Jews and other groups, and “We Shall Overcome” from the Civil Rights movement in the US, and reused in modern times).  The snare drum alternating with the bells creates an underlying militancy.  Later in the piece, the protest songs are played in the speech rhythms and a martial rhythm to signify the capture and mocking caricature of them by the oppressors (often with a sliver of freedom symbolized by themes played in their original rhythm by bassoon or others).   Tempo changes and more complex interweavings depict the increasing chaos and confusion.  The movement ends quietly, with the original tunes of oboe, bassoon, and cello and echo of dictator-speak or is it a protest?


08_Normalizing Evil the Last 100 Years 1924-2024  LESS REVERB

Claudia Marchini and Alexander Popov demonstrate that over the last 25 years the EU’s trading partners have become less and less democratic, and they investigate the background of this development and the dynamics at play.

The original post was published on 8 July 2025.
https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/blog/date/2025/html/ecb.blog...

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Release date:
8 July 2025

Trading with dictators? A historical review of the EU’s business partners

Lisa Pine speaks to Richard Overy about his life in history and the history of his life.
Richard Overy was educated at Caius College, Cambridge. He taught at Cambridge from 1972 to 1979 at Queens' College and from 1976-79 as a University Assistant Lecturer. From 1980 to 2004 he taught at King's College, London where he was made professor of Modern History in 1994. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (1977), Fellow of the British Academy (2000) and Fellow of King's College (2003). In 2001 he was awarded the Samuel Elliot Morison Prize of the Society for Military History for his contribution to the history of warfare. In September 2004 he took up appointment as Professor of History at the University of Exeter.

Richard specializes in the history of the Hitler and Stalin dictatorships, the Second World War, air power in the twentieth century, German history from c 1900. He has published extensively on the history of World War II and Nazi Germany. 'The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia' (Penguin 2005), won the 2004 Wolfson History Prize and the 2005 Hessell-Tiltman Prize.

The host of A Historian's Life, Lisa Pine, is an Associate Fellow of the Institute of Historical Research, University of London and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Her main research interests are the history of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. She was educated at the London School of Economics and was awarded her PhD from the University of London in 1996. She is the author of 'Nazi Family Policy, 1933-1945' (1997), 'Hitler’s “National Community”: Society and Culture in Nazi Germany' (2007, 2017), 'Education in Nazi Germany' (2010), 'Debating Genocide' (2018) and (with Kees Boterbloem) 'Soviet and Nazi Posters: Propaganda and Policies' (2025). She is the editor of 'Life and Times in Nazi Germany' (2016), 'The Family in Modern Germany' (2020) and 'Dictatorship and Daily Life in Twentieth-Century Europe' (2022). She has also published numerous journal articles and chapters in books on her areas of expertise. She is currently editing a new book, 'Food and Food Policies in European Dictatorships,' for publication by Bloomsbury Academic. She is co-editor (with Peter C. Caldwell) of the book series 'German History in Focus' (Bloomsbury Academic).


A Historian's Life - Richard Overy with Lisa Pine 2023 11 15

Cassandra ist die Stimme, die immer alles besser weiß.
Die, die recht hat – und die genau deshalb keiner hören will.
Sie redet von Weltuntergang, von Macht, von Angst.
Von Mädchen, die unerreichbar scheinen.
Und von Wahrheiten, die man lieber ignorieren möchte.

Der Song stellt Fragen, gibt keine Antworten.
Er provoziert, widerspricht, flüchtet – und kommt immer wieder zurück.
Ein Schlagabtausch mit der Realität.
Zweifel trifft Trotz.
Wut trifft Müdigkeit.
Und am Ende bleibt die Frage:
Wer hört hier eigentlich wem nicht zu?

Cassandra is the voice that always knows better.
The one who’s right – and that’s exactly why no one wants to hear her.
She speaks of apocalypse, power, and fear.
Of girls who seem out of reach.
And of truths we’d rather ignore.

The song asks questions but gives no answers.
It provokes, contradicts, escapes – and keeps coming back.
A confrontation with reality.
Doubt meets defiance.
Anger meets exhaustion.
And in the end, one question remains:
Who’s really not listening to whom?

Cassandra

„Das war‘s mit der Demokratie“
Sagst Du
„Game over...
Schau Dich nur mal um in der Welt:
Autokraten, Diktatoren, Milliardäre
Und all der Hustle ums große Geld
Game over...“

Hey Hey Cassandra
Nicht so verbissen
Mal ehrlich, Alter
Wer zum Teufel will das wissen?!
Spar dir deinen Senf dazu
Oh Oh - Oh Oh Oh Oh
Ernsthaft Alter
Lass mich in Ruh
Oh Oh Oh Oh
Hey Hey Cassandra

„Vergiss das Mädel“
Sagst Du
„Zu jung, zu schön für dich“
Und ich denk nur - Junge
Unterschätz mich nicht
Ich schick jetzt mein Lächeln rüber zu ihr
Und in ner halben Stunde fragt sie
„Gehen wir zu dir oder zu mir?“

Hey Hey Cassandra
Nicht so verbissen
Mal ehrlich, Alter
Wer zum Teufel will das wissen?!
Spar dir deinen Senf dazu
Oh Oh - Oh Oh Oh Oh
Ernsthaft Alter
Lass mich in Ruh
Oh Oh Oh Oh
Hey Hey Cassandra

Hey Cassandra
Erzähl mir vom Urlaub 
Erzähl mir von der Sonne
Damit ich auf andere Gedanken komme

Hey Hey Cassandra
Nicht so verbissen
Echt jetzt, Alter
Wer zur Hölle will das wissen?!
Spar dir deinen Senf dazu
Und lass mich in Ruh
Oh Oh - Oh Oh Oh Oh
Oh Oh - Oh Oh Oh Oh
Hey Hey Cassandra
Lass gut sein...

Zu dir oder zu mir?


Cassandra

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A selection of Podcast episodes from the Institute of Historical Research:
• A Historian's Life
• History in Conversation

New tracks tagged #Dictators