The Road to Unfreedom

The past is another country, the old saying goes. The same might be said of the future. But which country? For Europeans and Americans today, the answer is Russia.Today's Russia is an oligarchy propped up by illusions and falsities. But it also represents the fulfilment of tendencies already present in the West. And if Moscow's drive to dissolve Western states and values succeeds, this could become our reality too.In this visionary work of contemporary history, Timothy Snyder shows how Russia works within the West to destroy the West; by supporting the far right in Europe, invading Ukraine in 2014, and waging a cyberwar during the 2016 presidential campaign and the EU referendum. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the creation of Donald Trump, an American failure deployed as a Russian weapon. But this threat presents an opportunity to better understand the pillars of our freedoms, confront our own complacency and seek renewal. History never ends, and this new challenge forces us to face the choices that will determine the future: equality or oligarchy, individualism or totalitarianism, truth or lies.The Road to Unfreedom helps us to see our world as if for the first time. It is necessary reading for any citizen of a democracy.

Auteur

Timothy Snyder is Levin Professor of History at Yale University, and has written and edited a number of critically acclaimed and prize-winning books about twentieth-century European history: his most recent book, On Tyranny, was an international bestseller.

Previous books include Black Earth, which was longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize; and Bloodlands, which won the Hannah Arendt Prize, the Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding, the Ralph Waldo Emerson Award in the Humanities and the literature award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

His books have been translated into more than forty languages.

Résumé

From the author of international bestseller On Tyranny, this prescient analysis of Russia's ongoing interference in the West is now more relevant than ever.

'One of the best...brisk, conceptually convincing account of democracy's retreat in the early years of 21st century' Guardian

The past is another country, the old saying goes. The same might be said of the future. But which country? For Europeans and Americans today, the answer is Russia.

In this visionary work of contemporary history, Timothy Snyder shows how Russia works within the West to destroy the West; by supporting the far right in Europe, invading Ukraine in 2014, and waging a cyberwar during the 2016 presidential campaign and the EU referendum. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the creation of Donald Trump, an American failure deployed as a Russian weapon. But this threat presents an opportunity to better understand the pillars of our freedoms and face the choices that will determine the future: equality or oligarchy, individualism or totalitarianism, truth or lies.

'A brilliant and disturbing analysis, which should be read by anyone wishing to understand the political crisis currently engulfing the world' Yuval Noah Harari, bestselling author of Sapiens