Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism
by Anne Applebaum
View on GoodreadsWhy do educated, often prosperous people who once championed liberal democracy end up backing nationalists and would-be autocrats? Not because of new evidence, in Anne Applebaum's account. She starts from a 1999 New Year's Eve party in Poland, where many of her pro-democracy guests later made exactly that turn.
Core ideas
- The clerks: Borrowing Julien Benda's idea of the clercs, the book holds that authoritarian movements need intellectuals and writers to supply their justifications.
- Why they convert: Career ambition, resentment, cultural despair and the pull of simple stories and conspiracy theories do the work that new facts don't.
- Restorative nostalgia: Svetlana Boym's split between reflective and restorative nostalgia explains the appeal of an idealized national past, from Poland and Hungary to Britain and the US.
Published2020
Pages224
ISBN9780771005855
ReadOct 2022
