Three of today’s finest writers and commentators on Russian history and politics explore the parallels between then and now – Stalin’s era and Putin’s – drawing on the paradox that, as revelations about Stalin’s atrocities continue to shock, his reputation is gaining strength in Russia. Is Putin, one of the most powerful and feared men in the world, Stalin’s heir? Do the ghosts of Russia’s autocratic past retain their stranglehold on the present?

“Strongman politics are ascendant”, Barack Obama wrote recently: “The politics of fear and resentment… is now on the move”.  From America to China, from Europe to Brazil, in India and across the Middle East, ‘macho’ leaders are very much in fashion. So why is the strongman proving so attractive to so many, and will the fashion be a passing one? Our panellists debated the character traits, neurology and behaviours of the political strongman – as ...

Double Bill Offer: Book for the Jewish Book Week events in Hall One and Hall Two tonight – ‘The Age of the Demagogue’ at 7pm and ‘Great Philosophers and Where They Went Wrong’ at 8.30pm – for the special price of £24. At 7pm our panel of experts on politics and economics examine why the world seems to be falling for the charms of strongman leaders, and at 8.30pm Ferdinand Mount examines some of the greatest ideas and thinkers in world history, and explain...