Name: Nica Rhiana's review of Twilight of Democracy by Anne Applebaum
Item: Twilight of Democracy
Rating: 4
Author: Nica Rhiana

Anne Applebaum

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author, professor, and historian offers an expert guide to understanding the appeal of the strongman as a leader and an explanation for why authoritarianism is back with a menacing twenty-first century twist. Across the world today, from the Americas to Europe and beyond, liberal democracy is under siege while populism and nationalism are on the rise. In Twilight of Democracy, prize-winning historian Anne Applebaum 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. People, she argues, are not just ideological; they are also practical, pragmatic, opportunistic. They worry about their families, their houses, their careers. Some political systems offer them possibilities, and others don't. In particular, the modern authoritarian parties that have arisen within democracies today offer the possibility of success to people who do not thrive in the meritocratic, democratic, or free-market competition that determines access to wealth and power. 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.

The Seductive Lure of the Authoritarian State

Twilight of Democracy

Nica Rhiana

The “authoritarian predisposition” [i]s not exactly the same as closed-mindedness. It is better described as simple-mindedness: people are often attracted to authoritarian ideas because they are bothered by complexity. They dislike divisiveness. They prefer unity.

Anne Applebaum is a leading historian of communism and a penetrating investigator of contemporary politics. Here she sets her sights on the big question, one with which she herself has been deeply engaged in both Europe and America: how did our democracy go wrong? This extraordinary document, written with urgency, intelligence and understanding, is her answer. Timothy Snyder Friendships torn. Ideals betrayed. Alliances broken. In this, her most personal book, a great historian explains why so many of those who won the battles for democracy or have spent their lives proclaiming its values are now succumbing to liars, thugs and crooks. Analysis, reportage and memoir, Twilight of Democracy fearlessly tells the shameful story of a political generation gone bad. David Frum In the years just before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall, people from across the political spectrum in Europe and America celebrated a great achievement, felt a common purpose and, very often, forged personal friendships. Yet over the following decades the euphoria evaporated, the common purpose and centre ground gradually disappeared, extremism rose once more and eventually - as this book compellingly relates - the relationships soured too. Anne Applebaum traces this history in an unfamiliar way, looking at the trajectories of individuals caught up in the public events of the last three decades. When politics becomes polarized, which side do you back? If you are a journalist, an intellectual, a civic leader, how do you deal with the re-emergence of authoritarian or nationalist ideas in your country? When your leaders appropriate history, or pedal conspiracies, or eviscerate the media and the judiciary, do you go along with it? Twilight of Democracy is an essay that combines the personal and the political in an original way and brings a fresh understanding to the dynamics of public life in Europe and America, both now and in the recent past.

The Failure of Politics and the Parting of Friends

Amelia Raptis

It definitely had some truth to it, and valid judgement packed with detailed history and factual evidence, but it got draggy and boring. Not a waste of time, however, but it could’ve been 75 pages shorter.

Jorge Cimentada

I found that this book was more anectodal than a proper political analysis of the decline of democracy. Full of personal notes on how the author interacts with her colleagues, this gave me the impression it was more a rant towards her friends, discussing the gossip that is always present in the high echelons of society.

She does touch upon some important points but the arguments were extremely shallow and I wouldn't trust this as a reliable source to be used in serious political arguments. I was expecting some thorough political analysis from a pulitzer prize winner journalist. In any case, two stars because some points were ok.

What I got from this book:

Some people cannot handle complexity and thus go for simpler political ideas, usually embraced by new comer parties such as Law and Order, Vox, Viktor Orban and Donald Trump. One thing that struck me from the her comments is how many of these parties openly oppose democratic processes and once they're in power the openly change the rules to suppress dissidents (Poland, Hungary right now). Aside from that, the book offers shallow political arguments.

Nica Rhiana &
Twilight of Democracy by Anne Applebaum

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Nica Rhiana &Twilight of Democracy by Anne Applebaum

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Nica Rhiana &
Twilight of Democracy by Anne Applebaum