Twilight of Democracy
The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism
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Narrated by:
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Anne Applebaum
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By:
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Anne Applebaum
About this listen
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • "How did our democracy go wrong? This extraordinary document ... is Applebaum's answer."—Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny
The Pulitzer Prize-winning historian explains, with electrifying clarity, why elites in democracies around the world are turning toward nationalism and authoritarianism.
From the United States and Britain to continental Europe and beyond, liberal democracy is under siege, while authoritarianism is on the rise. In Twilight of Democracy, Anne Applebaum, an award-winning historian of Soviet atrocities who was one of the first American journalists to raise an alarm about antidemocratic trends in the West, explains the lure of nationalism and autocracy. In this captivating essay, she contends that political systems with radically simple beliefs are inherently appealing, especially when they benefit the loyal to the exclusion of everyone else. Elegantly written and urgently argued, Twilight of Democracy is a brilliant dissection of a world-shaking shift and a stirring glimpse of the road back to democratic values.
©2020 Anne Applebaum (P)2020 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Angela Merkel has always been an outsider. A pastor’s daughter raised in Soviet-controlled East Germany, she spent her twenties working as a research chemist, entering politics only after the fall of the Berlin Wall. And yet within fifteen years, she had become chancellor of Germany and, before long, the unofficial leader of the West. In this “masterpiece of discernment and insight” (The New York Times Book Review), acclaimed biographer Kati Marton sets out to pierce the mystery of Merkel’s unlikely ascent.
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What a remarkable leader in these trying times!
- By Doug Easterling on 11-30-21
By: Kati Marton
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The Light That Failed
- Why the West Is Losing the Fight for Democracy
- By: Ivan Krastev, Stephen Holmes
- Narrated by: David de Vries
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Why did the West, after winning the Cold War, lose its political balance? In the early 1990s, hopes for the eastward spread of liberal democracy were high. And yet the transformation of Eastern European countries gave rise to a bitter repudiation of liberalism itself, not only there but also back in the heartland of the West. In this brilliant work of political history, Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes argue that the supposed end of Communism turned out to be only the beginning of the age of the autocrat.
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Great text
- By Safronov on 05-03-21
By: Ivan Krastev, and others
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The Inevitability of Tragedy
- Henry Kissinger and His World
- By: Barry Gewen
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 18 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Few public officials have provoked such intense controversy as Henry Kissinger. During his time in the Nixon and Ford administrations, he came to be admired and hated in equal measure. Notoriously, he believed that foreign affairs ought to be based primarily on the power relationships of a situation, not simply on ethics. He went so far as to argue that under certain circumstances America had to protect its national interests even if that meant repressing other countries' attempts at democracy.
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Interesting but rambles
- By K on 02-17-21
By: Barry Gewen
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The Jakarta Method
- Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program That Shaped Our World
- By: Vincent Bevins
- Narrated by: Tim Paige
- Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1965, the US government helped the Indonesian military kill approximately one million innocent civilians. This was one of the most important turning points of the 20th century, eliminating the largest communist party outside China and the Soviet Union and inspiring copycat terror programs in faraway countries like Brazil and Chile. But these events remain widely overlooked, precisely because the CIA's secret interventions were so successful.
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Great book, but the narration has serious flaws
- By Prof. Neil Larsen on 08-03-20
By: Vincent Bevins
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Strongmen
- Mussolini to the Present
- By: Ruth Ben-Ghiat
- Narrated by: Chloe Cannon
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Ruth Ben-Ghiat is the expert on the "strongman" playbook employed by authoritarian demagogues from Mussolini to Putin. In Strongmen, she lays bare the blueprint these leaders have followed over the past 100 years, and empowers us to recognize, resist, and prevent their disastrous rule in the future.
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Fascism expert talks fascism
- By sparky on 12-04-20
By: Ruth Ben-Ghiat
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Death of the Liberal Class
- By: Chris Hedges
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Chris Hedges examines the failure of the liberal class to confront the rise of the corporate state and the consequences of a liberalism that has become profoundly bankrupted. Hedges argues that there are five pillars of the liberal establishment and that each of these institutions has sold out the constituents it represented. In doing so, the liberal class has become irrelevant to society at large and ultimately the corporate power elite they once served.
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Integrity-Can You Tell Me Where It's Gone?
- By Mel on 06-14-12
By: Chris Hedges
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The Invention of Russia
- From Gorbachev's Freedom to Putin's War
- By: Arkady Ostrovsky
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 12 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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The end of Communism and breakup of the Soviet Union was a time of euphoria around the world, but Russia today is violently anti-American and dangerously nationalistic. So how did we go from the promise of those days to the autocratic police state of Putin's new Russia? The Invention of Russia reaches back to the darkest days of the Cold War to tell the story of the fight for the soul of a nation.
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Sad Story of Russia's Abandonment of Liberalism
- By Amazon Customer on 10-03-16
By: Arkady Ostrovsky
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The Smallest Minority
- Independent Thinking in the Age of Mob Politics
- By: Kevin D. Williamson
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Listener beware: Kevin D. Williamson - the lively, literary firebrand from National Review who was too hot for The Atlantic to handle - comes to bury democracy, not to praise it. With electrifying honesty and spirit, Williamson takes a flamethrower to mob politics, the “beast with many heads” that haunts social media and what currently passes for real life. It’s destroying our capacity for individualism and dragging us down “the Road to Smurfdom, the place where the deracinated demos of the Twitter age finds itself feeling small and blue.”
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Brutally honest, accurate and relevant
- By Sean on 09-19-19
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Liberal Fascism
- The Secret History of the American Left
- By: Jonah Goldberg
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 15 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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"Fascists", "Brownshirts", "jackbooted stormtroopers" - such are the insults typically hurled at conservatives by their liberal opponents. Calling someone a fascist is the fastest way to shut them up, defining their views as beyond the political pale. But who are the real fascists in our midst?
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Great book
- By Mark on 05-10-08
By: Jonah Goldberg
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Heaven on Earth
- The Rise, Fall, and Afterlife of Socialism
- By: Joshua Muravchik
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 16 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Socialism was man's most ambitious attempt to supplant religion with a doctrine claiming to ground itself in "science". Each failure to create societies of abundance or give birth to "the New Man" inspired more searching for the path to the promised land: revolution, communes, social democracy, communism, fascism, Arab socialism, African socialism. None worked, and some exacted a staggering human toll. Then, after two centuries of wishful thinking and bitter disappointment, socialism imploded in a fin de siecle drama of falling walls and collapsing regimes.
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A biased yet informative masterpiece
- By CodyPeacock12349 on 04-04-21
By: Joshua Muravchik
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I learned a lot
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What listeners say about Twilight of Democracy
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- AJ
- 07-23-20
Modern Dictators & President who wants to be them
This book gives you a close up look at how people that once suffered under Fascist, Communist or Dictatorial regimes and gained freedom of government based on hodge podge of western values have (often willingly) slipped into the iron grip of a powerfully manipulative few.
While autocrats have learned to streamline and soften the blow with their deluge of alternative facts churned through modern public relations operations. Everyday citizens, talented and educated are replaced by loyalists without experience and face a dangerously perilous future for themselves and their families. Every person eventually reaches a crossroad: Tow the party or autocrat line no matter how absurd or contradictory to what may have been said days before or risk losing everything.
The book tells the tale of those who have been through what some in the west are only experiencing now for the first time. It is a warning that should not be taken lightly.
The book shows that once momentum of an ideologue begins, the competence or lack thereof in its leader means far less to the average person then the opportunity for benefits, status and sense of belonging to something greater then themselves (real or perceived) that rains down on its loudest and most rabid supporters.
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53 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 08-05-24
Great!
Excellent support for her claims, fascinating history of several nations' modern descent into authoritarianism and hypernationalism, and a clear thread of the causes and solutions.
I feel more educated about the politics of several European nations I might not otherwise have gotten acquainted with.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Patricia Austin
- 09-16-20
Excellent!
Very timely book during election 2020. It's interesting how systems of government cycle through over the years.
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- Grace M-T
- 06-28-21
Masterful blend of the personal and political
A moving account of the “progression” of illiberal governments. The author uses her intimate knowledge of Eastern Europe to inform her reporting, but is scrupulously fair. Applebaum is an old-school journalist which I fear is a dying breed in the age of click-bait. One caveat: she says that although both left-leaning and right-leaning individuals can be drawn to authoritarianism (a dislike of complexity, an unwillingness to debate, etc) it is only on the right that has embraced authoritarian regimes. I think the jury is still out. But her book is no less valuable because she focuses on her area of expertise. If anything it makes it stronger.
Note: Applebaum speaks as skillfully and persuasively as she writes. Discerning listeners will be glad she chose to narrate her own book.
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- Ashley King
- 02-23-22
A personal dissection of authoritarian populism
I am glad Applebaum narrated her own text elucidating the trends on the right, from Poland to Hungary, Spain to Britain and the US. I would have added a little nuance to Trump's statements about FBI since abuses from that corner in 2016-17 complicate the point she ably makes: the danger of the authoritarian trend.
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- Cameron
- 09-07-20
Important - read this book!
A great review of where we are and how we got here. In looking at the world rather than just US politics you see the pattern emerging and perhaps the importance of this moment.
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- F. A. Cuello
- 08-09-20
A riveting account from her first-hand experience..,
...which I happened to witness (and suffer intimately) from my own vantage points as a diplomat and a father. By all means buy this book, spread the word shared so eloquently by the author in her audiobook version. Encourage discussion of its main points. The last thing we need in these challenging times of rapid change is to revert to extremisms of any form, much less from a selfish and self righteous right proposing positions poorly based on fact and rather grounded on destructive emotions.
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- Josh
- 08-08-20
Must read
Scary but enlightening. Everyone should read this. I’ve always heard “it can’t happen here” but it really can.
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- jaga
- 08-19-20
Will the sun rise again on the other side?
Anne does a great job depicting what authoritarian regimes can and do look like, drawing quite a bit on her personal experience. She does a particularly good job showing how people can rationalize their choices or simply lie to themselves about what they do or how they support. It is this compromise (the “seductive lure”) that provides authoritarian types the runway to gather more and more power, sometimes by legal means, often not. Ultimately, the question for such societies is whether they are being overtaken by a rogue regime, or are they simply a reflection of what the society itself has become. I like to think that it is the former, but it seems the jury is still out on that one.
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- Anthony R. Ackerman
- 08-17-20
An amazing book
Anne Applebaum’s ability to think clearly is almost matched by her ability to write as well, or better than any author I have read. She brings the nature of the issues, the polarization of western societies into understandable context. I thank her for this amazing book
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