126 pages
English language
Published Jan. 23, 2017 by Crown, Tim Duggan Books.
In previous books, Holocaust historian Timothy Snyder dissected the events and values that enabled the rise of Hitler and Stalin and the execution of their catastrophic policies. With Twenty Lessons, Snyder draws from the darkest hours of the twentieth century to provide hope for the twenty-first. As he writes, "Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism and communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience."
It shows the path tyranny takes from a joke among the elites to cold reality and what steps to stop that could look like.
Pithy, its pages excel at being Instagrammable (Complimentary). Information does nothing if its not in the hands of the people who need this and On Tyranny wants to be in every set of hands it can fit in.
This is a small book, but it has a LOT of information packed into it. I took my time reading through it because the topics are obviously on the heavier side and I wanted to give myself time to process what I was reading.
Snyder does a fantastic job at drawing the parallels between Nazism and Communism and what is occurring in America at this time. As an American, I felt that this is a very important book. You always hear references to the president pulling from Hitler's playbook, but you don't get much information other than that. This puts a lot of it into perspective. Chillingly, though, this was written in 2017, and seeing everything playing out the same way with more force is frankly terrifying.
This book is not just gloom and doom, though. Snyder talks about his different points, gives you some detail so you understand what …
This is a small book, but it has a LOT of information packed into it. I took my time reading through it because the topics are obviously on the heavier side and I wanted to give myself time to process what I was reading.
Snyder does a fantastic job at drawing the parallels between Nazism and Communism and what is occurring in America at this time. As an American, I felt that this is a very important book. You always hear references to the president pulling from Hitler's playbook, but you don't get much information other than that. This puts a lot of it into perspective. Chillingly, though, this was written in 2017, and seeing everything playing out the same way with more force is frankly terrifying.
This book is not just gloom and doom, though. Snyder talks about his different points, gives you some detail so you understand what it means, and then usually gives you some advice for how to react to or handle these events coming to play in real life.
If you are concerned about what you have been seeing from this presidency, you should absolutely give this a read.
Short, punchy, to the point, and necessary. Since Snyder is a European historian, he necessarily draws his examples from Europe, but you don't have to reach that far back in U.S. history to think of analogous circumstances. His first takeaway is crucial: do not obey in advance.
Good fascism primer. Quick read.
Vital. Read this. Tell everyone you know to read it.
This book has a very centrist liberal take on tyranny, and while Snyder makes some good points, he contradicts himself, and has a blindness to tyranny happening on the home front.
This book uses lessons from abroad to discuss tyranny without actually defining it. I'm fine with tyranny having a loose meaning when being discussed between normal people, but in a book written by a Yale professor of history? I don't think that's acceptable. To Snyder, tyranny is simply what the Communists did, what the Nazis did, and what Putin does (and what Trump is trying to do). Not a very useful definition. Ironically, he does provide a useful definition of "totalitarian", a less common word that I frequently see meaninglessly slung around in political discourse.
Snyder also contradicts himself. For example, he will spend a chapter praising journalism and the media. This is fine. He draws a distinction between …
This book has a very centrist liberal take on tyranny, and while Snyder makes some good points, he contradicts himself, and has a blindness to tyranny happening on the home front.
This book uses lessons from abroad to discuss tyranny without actually defining it. I'm fine with tyranny having a loose meaning when being discussed between normal people, but in a book written by a Yale professor of history? I don't think that's acceptable. To Snyder, tyranny is simply what the Communists did, what the Nazis did, and what Putin does (and what Trump is trying to do). Not a very useful definition. Ironically, he does provide a useful definition of "totalitarian", a less common word that I frequently see meaninglessly slung around in political discourse.
Snyder also contradicts himself. For example, he will spend a chapter praising journalism and the media. This is fine. He draws a distinction between print and digital news, and arbitrarily states that print media is more truthful, and online media creates a reality show where things are less real, and therefore things cannot affect politicians. In a later chapter, he will condemn the media for taking the bait and talking about Clinton's emails, claiming that "media preferred to mindlessly indulge the inherently salacious interest we have in other people's affairs" and comparing the political scandal to a fashion journalist not taking photos of a changing model, which is just simply a terrible comparison.
Some of Snyder's better points, such as how "extremist" and "terrorist" are often used as political insults to slander individuals and groups of people, and are devoid of real meaning in many cases because of that. He uses the example of the state claiming rights must be taken away to protect the people from terrorists, but simultaneously accepts this framing as inherently legitimate. One point he makes that I like that I cannot fault is his very brief analysis on how fascists manipulate the laws to gain power and exercise authority while capitalizing on disaster (real or not) to cement it.
Finally, and most annoyingly, Snyder is painfully blind to tyranny on the home front in true centrist liberal fashion. Pointing only at Trump, and disparate acts (such as the patriot act) to point at tyrannic at home, while ignoring the massive history of tyranny in the US. Throughout the book, there is only one mention of black struggle against tyranny, and it is, in full, "Remember Rosa Parks." even if the rest of the historic examples are all from the same time period abroad. Nothing is mentioned about the genocide stemming from colonialism, massive oppression of indigenous people, slavery, or the Japanese concentration camps.
All things said, this book is probably not the best resource on tyranny.
This book lays out simple but effective tips to being a better citizen and to maintaining a healty democracy
This was an easy to read and digest collection of lessons on tyranny. This isn't an anatomical analysis of what tyranny is nor is it a definitive prescription of cures. It's collection of broad insights that come from historical accounts. The author speaks equally about events under Nazi and Communist governments that provide insights into how tyrannical governments operate.
The writing felt very centrist and balanced. He clearly tried to avoid leaning left or right and simply presented a series of lessons based on factual events.
This was an easy to read and digest collection of lessons on tyranny. This isn't an anatomical analysis of what tyranny is nor is it a definitive prescription of cures. It's collection of broad insights that come from historical accounts. The author speaks equally about events under Nazi and Communist governments that provide insights into how tyrannical governments operate.
The writing felt very centrist and balanced. He clearly tried to avoid leaning left or right and simply presented a series of lessons based on factual events.
A short but significant summary of the path to an authoritarian state. I'm a bit late to the party so it maybe hasn't landed quite as strongly for me, but it's still relevant in the UK just now. My main gripe is that it's clearly written for the US liberal centrist, and it's take on some of the lessons to learn from Europe land a bit funny. Still worth a read though.
Sound advice that almost seems like it was padded at the end.
This bourgois analysis disguised as "20 lessons" is a baffling ahistorical take on power. He is firmly planted in liberal democracy lala land, apparently the last beacon against the twin evils of nazism and communism 😕. Snyder has uncritically accepted US State actions and positions (prior to Trump). He definitely has a hard on for Churchill, or just about any noble leader of the free world. He sees zero of the irony in discussing the persecution of muslims as terrorists as a Russian innovation. At the end he unravels into pure russiagate rambling. It is telling that when mentioning how important the Reichstag burning in 1933, he says about who set the fire, "we don't know, and it doesn't really matter"
At 126 pages. Timothy Snyder offers a guide to understanding and averting tyranny. by sharing stories from authoritarian regimes in twenty chapters. These 20 lessons from the twentieth century is a defense of democracy and freedom. They include, Don’t obey in advance, Take responsibility for the face of the world, Defend institutions, Remember Professional ethics, Believe in truth, Establish a private life, Be a patriot.
Snyder finishes the book with a short epilogue contrasting two views of politics that he views as anti-historical, the politics of inevitability, the sense that history could move in only one direction: towards liberal democracy, and the politics of eternity, which is concerned with the past, but in a self-absorbed way, free of any real concern with facts.
A Yale history professor’s guide to emerging fascism. This is a short and important read.
The lessons are concise with historical parallels to the present. The advice throughout is non-partisan and bears repeating—stop spreading misinformation, meet with others in person, travel, read books, do your own research, etc.
The 10th lesson on how truth dies in four modes is worth the read alone.
- It begins with an open hostility to verifiable reality.
- The second mode is shamanistic incantation (everyone’s name gets an adjective, slogans, etc).
- The third is an open embrace of contradiction.
- The final mode is misplaced faith, where "once truth becomes oracular rather than factual, evidence is irrelevant.”
Brief, but indispensible little guidebook through the minefield of today's politics. History may not repeat itself, but there are patterns.
