**A Sunday Times Bestseller** **An Economist Best Book of the Year** The celebrated historian
and journalist uncovers the networks trying to destroy the democratic world All of us have in
our minds a cartoon image of what an autocratic state looks like with a bad man at the top.
But in the 21st century that cartoon bears little resemblance to reality. Nowadays
autocracies are run not by one bad guy but by sophisticated networks composed of kleptocratic
financial structures security services and professional propagandists. The members of these
networks are connected not only within a given country but among many countries. The corrupt
state-controlled companies in one dictatorship do business with corrupt state-controlled
companies in another. The police in one country can arm equip and train the police in
another. The propagandists share resources-the troll farms that promote one dictator's
propaganda can also be used to promote the propaganda of another-and themes pounding home the
same messages about the weakness of democracy and the evil of America. Unlike military or
political alliances from other times and places this group doesn't operate like a bloc but
rather like an agglomeration of companies: Autocracy Inc . Their relations are not based on
values but are rather transactional which is why they operate so easily across ideological
geographical and cultural lines. In truth they are in full agreement about only one thing:
Their dislike of us the inhabitants of the democratic world and their desire to see both our
political systems and our values undermine. That shared understanding of the world-where it
comes from why it lasts how it works how the democratic world has unwittingly helped to
consolidate it and how we can help bring it down-is the subject of this book.
