So You Want To Be A Dictator or How To Take Over the World in Four Easy Steps

An integrated, interdiscioplinary unit exploring the ways rulers gained and maintained power before, during and after World War II. Our world has seen many different styles of leadership in history- those styles that produce positive results, those stylest that produce little resurlts and those styles that porduce negative or no results. One of the most extreme types of leadership is that of dictator, and when the right factors are in place, it is possible for a dictator to gain power. Without the rise and fall of Wrold War II dictators, the wolrd as we know it would not extist. The Soviet Union, Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and the loss of millions of lives due to the Holocaust and World War II would never be a part of our present appreciation for the world in which we live. In this unit students will examine characteristics of three dictatiors: Stalin, Mussolini, and Hitler. Students will also study those factors that aided in the gaining and maintaining of power by these dictators. This unit is important because students need to recognize the conditions that cause people to desire to be led by an overly - strong leader. By examining the dictators and their devastating effects on three separate nations, it will be possible to keeep the same from happening in the United States of America.