Here, of course, is where I must bore everyone by reminding readers of my own political leanings. If you don’t believe me, ask George Orwell what he named the propaganda wing of the government in Nineteen Eighty-Four. To what extent must one “be a patriot”? Should one “distrust paramilitaries” as a matter of course? What about the ones that overthrew British rule in the American colonies, or that paid such a fatal price in resisting the tyranny of the Nazis? And not to be painfully obvious, but “believe in truth” is a completely meaningless statement if one does not specify whose truth, arrived at in what way, and through what means. So, too, are businesses, which have historically backed fascism everywhere it has gained power. How is one to “defend institutions” without the ability to distinguish between a good one and a bad one? Slavery, after all, was an institution. Some seem contradictory: how can one “be kind to our language” while also listening for “dangerous words”? And others are downright toxic when removed from the precious context referred to above, without which sense cannot be made. Others are well-meaning but vague, as one might expect from a work aimed squarely at a respectable middle-class liberal audience: investigate, 'contribute to good causes', 'make eye contact and small talk'. What of the lessons themselves? Some are unquestionably good: 'do not obey in advance', 'learn from peers in other countries', 'be as courageous as you can'. Many of the warning signs Snyder cites as of menacing portent to our present moment in America – the erosion of privacy, the expansion of the security state, the demonization of immigrants – in fact began long before that, under less cartoonish leadership. There are claims in the book that one suspects would not pass muster if submitted to Snyder himself as part of a student’s paper, and the book’s brevity and simplicity may be good selling points, but they don’t make for good history. But it is less forgivable that it glosses so breezily over such important factors as context, background, and continuity, for the lack of these crucial frames leads to the very blurring of truth and fact that Snyder correctly preaches against throughout the book. Perhaps it is forgivable that On Tyranny presents no new research, for it is not that kind of history. Of course, herein lies the first of its problems. And On Tyranny, in both its forms, is an eminently readable work for a popular audience it does not go too far into the weeds of citation and historiography, presenting instead a direct and easy-to-read work that can be understood by high school-level readers and making its case simply, plainly, and without adornment. He is a gifted scholar, an heir to the largely respectable Western-humanist tradition, and the author of the celebrated Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (which I have not read). There is much to admire about Snyder’s work.

An eagerly anticipated graphic edition of the book, illustrated by the talented Nora Krug and released through Ten Speed Press (a subsidiary of original publisher Random House), will be released this October.

Enter Timothy Snyder, professor of history at Yale University and a scholar of 20 th -century European history, an era smeared with the blood of victims of just this sort of authoritarian regime his 2017 book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, became a major best-seller, remaining on the charts for over three years. The response to this crisis has been varied and chaotic, but it has at least increased the market for the kind of popular writing that rallies the electorate against this kind of rightist shenanigans. Elsewhere, other putative democracies, including the United Kingdom, the Philippines, and Brazil, have elected authoritarian leaders and sown the seeds of a similar degradation of the liberal status quo. It’s not hard to understand why: America, which long ago convinced itself that it is the natural home of freedom and democracy, barely dodged the bullet of re-electing a president whose contempt for institutions and the democratic process was palpable, and it has seen the repercussions – an increasingly polarized electorate, growing radicalism, and a near-insurrection at the nation’s capital – ever since. Tyranny is on a lot of peoples’ minds these days, both at home and abroad. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

On tyranny book