Name: Surviving Autocracy
Rating: 4 (7 reviews)
ISBN: 9780593188934

Masha Gessen

"An analysis of the destruction the Trump administration has waged on our institutions, the cultural norms we hoped would save us, and our very sense of identity"--

Surviving Autocracy

“When Gessen speaks about autocracy, you listen.” —The New York Times “A reckoning with what has been lost in the past few years and a map forward with our beliefs intact.” —Interview As seen on MSNBC’s Morning Joe and heard on NPR’s All Things Considered: the bestselling, National Book Award–winning journalist offers an essential guide to understanding, resisting, and recovering from the ravages of our tumultuous times. This incisive book provides an essential guide to understanding and recovering from the calamitous corrosion of American democracy over the past few years. Thanks to the special perspective that is the legacy of a Soviet childhood and two decades covering the resurgence of totalitarianism in Russia, Masha Gessen has a sixth sense for the manifestations of autocracy—and the unique cross-cultural fluency to delineate their emergence to Americans. Gessen not only anatomizes the corrosion of the institutions and cultural norms we hoped would save us but also tells us the story of how a short few years changed us from a people who saw ourselves as a nation of immigrants to a populace haggling over a border wall, heirs to a degraded sense of truth, meaning, and possibility. Surviving Autocracy is an inventory of ravages and a call to account but also a beacon to recovery—and to the hope of what comes next.

Jayme Bosio

Masha Gessen is an excellent writer and does an excellent job of describing President Trump’s autocratic aspirations. But the title is a misnomer. There are many books out there that teach us to recognize an autocrat but I’m looking for that book that explains how to fight back.

Kerry Gibbons

Hard to know what my full thoughts are on this book as I took a 6-month-long break from it. It was a thoughtful reflection of the Trump presidency and a sort of “how we got here” too. It included reference to Covid so it’s pretty with it, but obviously it was published before Jan 6, 2021, so it’s missing the assault on the capitol.

Garrett Jansen

Nicholas Christowitz

Liz Prinz

'An indispensable voice of and for this moment' Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny Many of us are consumed by news cycles reporting on Trump's latest astonishing policy or declaration, and the overwhelming sense we have is one of confusion and incredulity - how could this be happening? As the 2020 US Presidential race takes shape, SURVIVING AUTOCRACY provides an indispensable overview of the calamitous trajectory of the past few years. Drawing on her Soviet childhood and two decades covering the resurgence of totalitarianism in Russia, acclaimed New Yorker journalist and prize-winning author Masha Gessen links together seemingly disparate elements of Trump's regime to offer a roadmap for understanding Trump's approach, policies and ultimate aims. Highlighting an inventory of ravages to liberal democracy, including the corrosion of the media, the justice system and cultural norms, she posits that America is in the throws of an autocratic attempt. Gessen's penetrating analysis offers a new political discourse to replace that which has been so thoroughly degraded, and with it, a clearer path to action. Manifesto-like, Surviving Autocracy is threaded with solutions to the current situation, such as developing a political language that encompasses autocratic impulses, a more agile and honest media, and a visionary moral politics to counter Trump's extraordinary on-going assault.

Surviving Autocracy

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