Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism

Anne Applebaum

See why educated insiders abandon democratic rules, how nostalgia and conspiracy turn grievance into power, and how democratic coalitions can resist.

6 parts, about 21 minutes to read.

Why read it

Explains why successful democratic insiders trade constitutional rules for loyalty, resentment and the promise of national restoration
Connects medium size lies, restorative nostalgia and digital fragmentation to democratic backsliding in Poland, Britain, Spain and America
Shows why no political victory is permanent and why resisting authoritarianism requires participation, argument and new coalitions

Readers trying to understand why educated elites support authoritarian politics
Citizens concerned about democratic backsliding, conspiracy and political polarization
Students of nationalism, populism and modern European and American politics

Timothy SnyderHistorian and author of On Tyranny
How did our democracy go wrong? This extraordinary document . . . is Applebaum’s answer.

Anne ApplebaumAmerican journalist and historian; Pulitzer Prize winner for Gulag
- She is a staff writer for The Atlantic and a senior fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and the SNF Agora Institute.
- She was a Washington Post columnist for more than fifteen years and served on its editorial board.
- She was born in Washington in 1964, graduated from Yale, and was a Marshall Scholar at the London School of Economics and St Antony's College, Oxford.
- Her books include Iron Curtain, Gulag and Red Famine, histories of Soviet totalitarianism, the camp system and the Ukrainian famine.
- The publisher describes her as an early American journalistic voice warning about antidemocratic trends in the West.