NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of On Tyranny comes a stunning new chronicle of the
rise of authoritarianism from Russia to Europe and America. A brilliant analysis of our
time.-Karl Ove Knausgaard The New Yorker With the end of the Cold War the victory of liberal
democracy seemed final. Observers declared the end of history confident in a peaceful
globalized future. This faith was misplaced. Authoritarianism returned to Russia as Putin
found fascist ideas that could be used to justify rule by the wealthy. In the 2010s it has
spread from east to west aided by Russian warfare in Ukraine and cyberwar in Europe and the
United States. Russia found allies among nationalists oligarchs and radicals everywhere and
its drive to dissolve Western institutions states and values found resonance within the West
itself. The rise of populism the British vote against the EU and the election of Donald Trump
were all Russian goals but their achievement reveals the vulnerability of Western societies.
In this forceful and unsparing work of contemporary history based on vast research as well as
personal reporting Snyder goes beyond the headlines to expose the true nature of the threat to
democracy and law. To understand the challenge is to see and perhaps renew the fundamental
political virtues offered by tradition and demanded by the future. By revealing the stark
choices before us--between equality or oligarchy individuality or totality truth and
falsehood--Snyder restores our understanding of the basis of our way of life offering a way
forward in a time of terrible uncertainty.
