bionvelo.blogg.se - On tyranny book

“As Timothy Snyder explains in his fine and frightening On Tyranny, a minority party now has near-total power and is therefore understandably frightened of awakening the actual will of the people.” -Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker Read it carefully and be on the lookout for symptoms.” -Daniel W. Approach this short book the same you would a medical pamphlet warning about an infectious disease. It is impossible to read aphorisms like ‘post-truth is pre-fascism’ and not feel a small chill about the current state of the Republic.

A memorable work that is grounded in history yet imbued with the fierce urgency of what now.” -Carlos Lozada, The Washington Post A slim book that fits alongside your pocket Constitution and feels only slightly less vital. “Easily the most compelling volume among the early resistance literature. He has written the rare kind of book that can be read in one sitting but will keep you coming back to help regain your bearings.” -Masha Gessen “Timothy Snyder reasons with unparalleled clarity, throwing the past and future into sharp relief. This American writer leaves us with no illusions about ourselves.” -Svetlana Alexievich, Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature On Tyranny is a call to arms and a guide to resistance, with invaluable ideas for how we can preserve our freedoms in the uncertain years to come. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. We are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Today, our political order faces new threats, not unlike the totalitarianism of the twentieth century. The Founding Fathers tried to protect us from the threat they knew, the tyranny that overcame ancient democracy. He has written the rare kind of book that can be read in one sitting but will keep you coming back to help regain your bearings.”-Masha Gessen

A “bracing” ( Vox) guide for surviving and resisting America’s turn towards authoritarianism, from “a rising public intellectual unafraid to make bold connections between past and present” ( The New York Times).

The best part of On Tyranny is the epilogue, a thoughtful meditation on the fate of history in our moment. Aside from a smart paragraph about marching, Snyder has nothing useful to say about such democratic resistance. Nor does he look too closely at the ways these regimes resemble-or do not resemble-one another. Yet he never explains exactly how he thinks the experience of an American today is comparable to the experience of a Russian in the Soviet Union or a German living under the Third Reich.

Snyder’s advice to Americans is, he tells us, based on his study of repressive regimes. There is a strange disjunction between the gravity of the situation Snyder warns against (Hitler-style tyranny) and the banality of his advice. Yet many of the directives Snyder urges on his readers are a little vague and mystifying. It’s also commendable that in On Tyranny, Snyder counsels taking action rather than merely taking refuge in historical comparison. Snyder is right to think that the discipline of history has special value in strengthening democracy and combating authoritarianism. On Tyranny starts from a salutary impulse. a curious mixture of historical anecdotes and self-help bromides, premised on the idea that America is at the dawn of a tyrannical age, and that the past offers clues for resistance.