Twilight of Democracy by Anne Applebaum

A FINALIST FOR THE 2021 LIONEL GELBER PRIZE

ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVOURITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR



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

Across the world today, from the Americas to Europe and beyond, liberal democracy is under siege while populism and nationalism are on the rise. Twilight of Democracy offers an unexpected explanation: that there is a deep and inherent appeal to authoritarianism, to strongmen, and, especially, to one-party rule—that is, to political systems that benefit true believers, or loyal soldiers, or simply the friends and distant cousins of the Leader, to the exclusion of everyone else.

Drawing on reporting in Spain, Switzerland, Poland, Hungary, and Brazil; using historical examples including Stalinist central Europe and Nazi Germany; and investigating related phenomena: the modern conspiracy theory, nostalgia for a golden past, political polarization, and meritocracy and its discontents, Anne Applebaum brilliantly illuminates the seduction of totalitarian thinking and the eternal appeal of the one-party state.

ANNE APPLEBAUM is a columnist for the Washington Post and a frequent on-air presence on CNN. She has been raising the alarm about Russian interference in democratic elections and anti-democratic trends in Europe since before the 2016 U.S. election. A Professor of Practice at the London School of Economics and a contributor to the New York Review of Books, she is the author of three critically acclaimed and award-winning histories of the Soviet Union: Red Famine, Iron Curtain, and Gulag.

Author Residence: London, UK

Author Hometown: Washington, DC