Are tyrants made or born? Would you, personally, be corrupted by power? To find out, Brian Klaas met presidents, philanthropists, cultists and dictators. He tells his story to Jon Ronson.
Join legendary journalist, author and filmmaker Jon Ronson and leading political scientist and Washington Post commentator Brian Klaas for a provocative and revelatory journey into what power is, who gets it, and what happens when they have it.
Does power corrupt, or are corrupt people drawn to power? Are entrepreneurs who embezzle and cops who kill the outgrowths of bad systems or are they just bad people? Are we drawn to following bad people?
Drawing on over 500 interviews with some of the world’s noblest and dirtiest leaders and political insiders, from Tony Blair to Rab Butler, and drawing on a wealth of counter-intuitive examples from history and social science, this livestream event will make you challenge your assumptions about how you can rise to become a leader and what might happen when you get there.
You’ll meet the worst bioterrorist in American history, hit the slopes with a ski instructor who once ruled Iraq, have breakfast with the yogurt kingpin of Madagascar, learn what bees and wasps can teach us about corruption, find out why our Stone Age brains cause us to choose bad leaders, and learn why the inability of chimpanzees to play baseball is central to the development of human hierarchies.
Most important of all, Brian and Jon will provide a roadmap to avoiding classic temptations, suggesting a series of reforms that would ensure that better people get into power, while ensuring that power purifies rather than corrupts.
Praise for Brian Klaas’s Corruptible:
‘Illuminating . . . reveals why some people and systems are more likely to be corrupted by power than others’ – Adam Grant
‘Passionate, insightful, and occasionally jaw-dropping . . . Corruptible sets out the story of the intoxicating lure of power-and how it has shaped the modern world’ – Peter Frankopan
‘Surrounded by people, companies and organisations that abuse their power, we’ve never needed Brian Klaas’s penetrating study more. He has amassed a rich collection of evidence to offer some hope that we can pick better leaders and hold them to account’ – Polly Toynbee
‘Klaas is the rarest of finds: a political scientist who can also tell great stories. He mixes memorable anecdotes with stern analysis to tackle one of the biggest questions of all: do we have to be ruled by bad people?’ – Peter Pomerantsev
