On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
Author: Snyder, Timothy
ISBN: 9781847924889
Publisher: RANDOM HOUSE UK
Year First Published: 2017
Pages: 128
Dimensions: 198mm x 128mm x 11mm
Format: Paperback / softback
Description:
A controversial, timely intervention in world affairs from one of the most acclaimed historians of the twentieth century
**NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER**
'A sort of survival book, a sort of symptom-diagnosis manual in terms of losing your democracy and what tyranny and authoritarianism look like up close' Rachel Maddow
'These 128 pages are a brief primer in every important thing we might have learned from the history of the last century, and all that we appear to have forgotten' Observer
History does not repeat, but it does instruct.
In the twentieth century, European democracies collapsed into fascism, Nazism and communism. These were movements in which a leader or a party claimed to give voice to the people, promised to protect them from global existential threats, and rejected reason in favour of myth. European history shows us that societies can break, democracies can fall, ethics can collapse, and ordinary people can find themselves in unimaginable circumstances.
History can familiarise, and it can warn. Today, we are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to totalitarianism in the twentieth century. But when the political order seems imperilled, our advantage is that we can learn from their experience to resist the advance of tyranny.
Now is a good time to do so.
ISBN: 9781847924889
Publisher: RANDOM HOUSE UK
Year First Published: 2017
Pages: 128
Dimensions: 198mm x 128mm x 11mm
Format: Paperback / softback
Description:
A controversial, timely intervention in world affairs from one of the most acclaimed historians of the twentieth century
**NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER**
'A sort of survival book, a sort of symptom-diagnosis manual in terms of losing your democracy and what tyranny and authoritarianism look like up close' Rachel Maddow
'These 128 pages are a brief primer in every important thing we might have learned from the history of the last century, and all that we appear to have forgotten' Observer
History does not repeat, but it does instruct.
In the twentieth century, European democracies collapsed into fascism, Nazism and communism. These were movements in which a leader or a party claimed to give voice to the people, promised to protect them from global existential threats, and rejected reason in favour of myth. European history shows us that societies can break, democracies can fall, ethics can collapse, and ordinary people can find themselves in unimaginable circumstances.
History can familiarise, and it can warn. Today, we are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to totalitarianism in the twentieth century. But when the political order seems imperilled, our advantage is that we can learn from their experience to resist the advance of tyranny.
Now is a good time to do so.
