

If you could give The Road to Unfreedom a new subtitle, what would it be? Prosperity Politics made me rethink how I vote. It made me reconsider many of my political beliefs.

The book gives a comprehensive understanding of political narratives, and which ones are enticing but hollow and which ones aren't sexy but enrich nations and their citizens. What was the most compelling aspect of this narrative? Listening can be mentally less taxing than reading. The Road to Unfreedom is a dense text, delving with deliberate action into history, philosophy, and politics.

Would you consider the audio edition of The Road to Unfreedom to be better than the print version? By showcasing 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. In this forceful and unsparing work of contemporary history, Snyder goes beyond the headlines to expose the true nature of the threat to democracy. While countries like Poland and Hungary have made hard turns toward authoritarianism, the electoral upsets of 2016 revealed the citizens of the US and UK in revolt against their countries’ longstanding policies and values.īut this threat to the West also presents the opportunity to better understand the pillars of our own political order. In the last six years, it has creeped from east to west as nationalism inflames Europe, abetted by Russian propaganda and cyberwarfare. But we now know this to be premature.Īuthoritarianism first returned in Russia, as Putin developed a political system dedicated solely to the consolidation and exercise of power.

Observers declared the end of history, confident in a peaceful, globalized future. With the end of the Cold War, the victory of liberal democracy was thought to be absolute.
