Twilight of Democracy

The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism

De: Anne Applebaum

Narrado por: Anne Applebaum

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • "How did our democracy go wrong? This extraordinary document ... is Applebaum's answer."—Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny

The Pulitzer Prize-winning historian explains, with electrifying clarity, why elites in democracies around the world are turning toward nationalism and authoritarianism.

From the United States and Britain to continental Europe and beyond, liberal democracy is under siege, while authoritarianism is on the rise. In Twilight of Democracy, Anne Applebaum, an award-winning historian of Soviet atrocities who was one of the first American journalists to raise an alarm about antidemocratic trends in the West, explains the lure of nationalism and autocracy. In this captivating essay, she contends that political systems with radically simple beliefs are inherently appealing, especially when they benefit the loyal to the exclusion of everyone else. Elegantly written and urgently argued, Twilight of Democracy is a brilliant dissection of a world-shaking shift and a stirring glimpse of the road back to democratic values.

©2020 Anne Applebaum (P)2020 Random House Audio

Amazing book

A must read for our times. Please read and pass it on to your friends

hope to horror show.

with a myriad of detail and personal anecdote the author details the unraveling of hope for a progressive free world into a xenophobic megalomaniacal world of cynical opportunists and snake oil salesmen. we grow up, as we see it was ever thus. and yet her integrity, and the many others she names cannot extinguish all hope. very quick read. profound. for Americans fills in the margins of our own struggle.

Must Read

Chapter 5 should be required reading in H.S. history. Right next to civics and the media's influence on society.

An great argument for sanity

I think the author did a very good job in encapsulating the problem we are seeing internationally with false negatives, polarization and the dangers of the alt right. The future is unclear and the author clarified the problem while highlighting the importance of protecting long-standing institutions as well as democracy itself.

The ties that bind

The ultimate tie that binds is a commitment to respect for fundamental rights and checks and balances aka real democracy. That’s what Applebaum’s personal and intellectual journey reveals. Those who hide behind the banner of democracy, nationalism and patriotism are too often really authoritarians. Recognizing this offers hope.

A Book For Our Times

This was my introduction to Anne Applebaum and I am glad I took that first step. I liked Twilight of Democracy a great deal, particularly when the author turned her attention to the United States, recent developments here, the nature of our democracy and the importance of our continued participation in it. The fact that it is narrated by the author (sometimes an iffy proposition) makes it that much better. Anne Applebaum has a lovely manner of speaking, and her reading makes it feel like you are listening to a brilliant speaker holding forth at a small gathering of friends.

Powerful

I had not read Anne Applebaum prior to this book, I will be looking for anything she writes. Excellent and eye-opening!

Brilliant and shocking

Passionately connecting authoritarian impulses and movements in Poland and Hungary and other parts of Europe - see Brexit - with what Trump is further awakening here in the US. The work is a mind blowing education that watching PBS and listening to NPR all these years gave me no clue about. Wow!

One “do the right thing” to do.

Required reading for adults, and for aspiring adults. If you’re in a hurry, start with Chapter 5 - Prairie Fire, then begin again, with Chapter 1.

Worth while

As always i must start by saying that i much prefer books read by the author and this is one of those books. Very well read by Anne Applebaum. The book goes around how some center right in europe and the US goes on a hard right drive, denying much of its core values. Applebaum travels trhu polish, british,hungarian and spanish authoritarian political parties pointing several reasons for that new stance. Thou she fails to point woke left as one of those reasons. Still is a worthy buy.