4.0
On Tyranny
ByPublisher Description
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • 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)
“Timothy Snyder reasons with unparalleled clarity, throwing the past and future into sharp relief. 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
The Founding Fathers tried to protect us from the threat they knew, the tyranny that overcame ancient democracy. Today, our political order faces new threats, not unlike the totalitarianism of the twentieth century. We are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience.
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.
“Timothy Snyder reasons with unparalleled clarity, throwing the past and future into sharp relief. 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
The Founding Fathers tried to protect us from the threat they knew, the tyranny that overcame ancient democracy. Today, our political order faces new threats, not unlike the totalitarianism of the twentieth century. We are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience.
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.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesOn Tyranny Reviews
4.0
“Brilliant. Easy to read and understand, well laid out. Highly recommend.
Want for my personal library.
Very small book was surprised at this.”
“3 ⭐️- perhaps I read too many books about revolution and tyranny because this felt like a class review session”
“There are quite a few books on the nature of tyrannical government. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century attempts to give an instruction manual on how to defend against tyrannical government in the US. I say US as it is clearly written for Americans.
There are twenty different chapters each outlining brief instructions on how to act against authoritarian political movements. The book views both Fascist and Communist movements as authoritarians. It advises the following: do not obey in advance, defend institutions, beware the one-party state, take responsibility for the face of the world, remember professional ethics, be wary of paramilitaries, be reflective if you must be armed, stand out, be kind to our language, believe in truth, investigate, make eye contact and small talk, practice corporeal politics, establish private life, contribute to good causes, learn from peers in other countries, listen for dangerous words, be calm when the unthinkable arrives, be a patriot, be as courageous as you can.
The book uses history in the chapters to identify how authoritarians operated throughout the different contexts in the 20th century and this then relate how the reader should act. On Tyranny gives some reflection of how readers should react to different political situations particularly with the rise of Right-wing populism which clearly relates to Trumpism in the US.
I had a couple of issues with the book. Firstly, the book doesn't travel well outside the USA. Various points raised particularly on firearms do not exist in countries such as the UK that do not have mass firearms and consequently do not have militia. The 19th chapter on being a patriot is uniquely American. The term patriot in the USA has the reference point of being a patriotic citizen of the US. It is therefore a civic republican patriotism. In Europe, a patriot is a nationalist and is synonymous with the Far-Right. As a term, it does not have semantic meaning that works outside of the US. Other books on tyranny such as Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism, Umberto Eco's Er Fascism or Jason Stanley's How Fascism Works are more useful analyses of Far-Right populism and Fascism as they can be understood for a non-American audience.
The second critique is that it feels a rather neuro-typical criticism of authoritarianism. Chapter 12's advice is for the reader to engage in eye contact and small talk, which would be torturous for those who are neuro-divergent. Maybe I am being overly critical but is eye contact really necessary to defeat authoritarianism?
The third criticism I have of this book is how it ignores structural causes of authoritarianism via institutions. It talks about defending institutions which is fair enough. However, the US has many different institutions that have enabled Trump and the GOP to impose their populist, authoritarian agenda. The courts for example have been an institution that has largely been mixed in their approach to Trump. The US Supreme Court has actively dismantled civil rights protections on voting in the American South. Institutions are only as good at defending democracy as if they are structured well. After all, Hitler was tried by nationalist judges who were sympathetic to him and would have given him a tougher sentence if he was a Leftist. Institutions need improvement and reform as well as protection. Simply protecting institutions that enable authoritarianism does nothing to defend against it.
The fourth criticism is that it feels that much of his advice goes without saying. The kind of people who become supporters of authoritarian movements aren't going to read this book, whilst those who march in No Kings Day would already do those activities. So there isn't much new talked about.
Despite my four criticisms, I think that this book is a good basic overview of how one should act against populist authoritarian politics.”
About Timothy Snyder
Timothy Snyder holds the Temerty Chair in Modern European History at the Munk School, University of Toronto, and is a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. His books, which have been published in over forty languages, include Bloodlands, Black Earth, On Tyranny, The Road to Unfreedom, Our Malady, and On Freedom. His work has inspired poster campaigns and exhibitions, sculptures, a punk rock song, a rap song, a play, and an opera, and he has appeared in over fifty films and documentaries.
Other books by Timothy Snyder
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