Nicolae Ceaușescu was not beloved. His regime was vicious and he treated Romania as his personal wallet: while Ceaușescu emptied the coffers to construct a vast, ornate palace, his people starved. He imposed disastrous population control policies on his country, too, which saw hundreds of thousands of unwanted children left to rot in squalid orphanages. Ceaușescu's rule endured for a quarter of a century - then crumbled overnight.
How do dictatorships unravel? In a second episode, Tim Harford partners with HBO's new series "The Regime" to investigate real-life dictatorships and the social science that explains them.
For a full list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com.
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The Fraudster's Guide to Magic Money
Blood and Gold (with Dan Snow)
Inside the Bizarre World of Dictators
Pushkin Hosts Celebrate World Happiness Day
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Buried Evil: V2 Rocket (Part 3)
Into the Black Lair: V2 Rocket (Part 2)
Supersonic Nazi Vengeance: V2 Rocket (Part 1)
Tenerife: The Most Deadly Air Disaster
Martin Luther King, the Jewelry Genius, and the Art of Public Speaking (Classic)
DANGER: Rocks Ahead! (Classic)
When Stalin Killed the Weekend (with The Happiness Lab)
How the Radium Girls Fought Back
Glowing Peril: The Magical Glitter That Poisoned a City
George Washington's Beard of Beetles (with The Dollop)
Laser Versus Parchment: Doomsday for the Disc
Cautionary Tales Presents The Dream
Killers of the Flower Moon: Osage Chief Jim Gray In Conversation
Oil and Blood: The Osage Murders
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