Throughout this book, I have tried to show that there are fundamental differences in the understanding of tyranny between classical and modern political philosophy, mirrored in the historical reality of modern tyranny itself, especially at its most radical totalitarian extreme. In arguing this, do I necessarily commit myself to the view that human nature in general has actually changed? Let me end with a few speculative remarks on this basic but enormously complex hermeneutical problem.

I will begin by posing some fairly blunt alternatives. Is nuclear weaponry, for example, no more than the outcome of the long evolution of the human capacity to inflict destruction stretching back to the Roman catapult? This is conceivable. On the other hand, did man's ability to split the atom, which presupposes modern natural science and its refutation of ancient cosmology, introduce an entirely new force into human history – the capacity to destroy human civilization? If so, the destructive reach of tyrannical power has arguably been fundamentally transformed from what it was before the twentieth century. In the human realm, are Hitler and Stalin merely recognizable tyrants from the classical typology equipped with military and technological power that did not exist in the ancient past? Or (as I am inclined to believe) did their secular millenarianism and projects for the futuristic reconstruction of the world and the creation of a “new man” through genocide introduce a fundamentally new element not comprehendible within the ancient categories, perhaps closer to religious millenarianism and fanaticism?