On Tyranny

twenty lessons from the twentieth century

by

126 pages

English language

Published Jan. 24, 2017

ISBN:
978-0-8041-9011-4
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(6 reviews)

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."

3 editions

reviewed On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder

Useful book with some flaws.

Does not properly distinguish power from authority, i.e. "A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do. Anticipatory obedience is a political tragedy."

Historical details were glossed over in the prologue which might misinform some readers.

The Yale experiment on fascism is presented to imply that by human nature we are naturally quick to harm one another, in some twister Hobbesian assumption - rather than a product of the limited sample size in a small study under specific economic, political, and societal conditions of the USA.

Otherwise, there are many great ways to defend against and confront Tyranny that are applicable primary to the USA, and secondarily to other western democracies.

reviewed On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder

Well worth a read.

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 …