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Twilight of Democracy

The Failure of Politics and the Parting of Friends

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Twilight of Democracy

By: Anne Applebaum
Narrated by: Anne Applebaum
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

In the years just before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall, conservative politicians and intellectuals across Europe and America celebrated a great achievement, felt a common purpose and, very often, forged personal friendships. The euphoria quickly evaporated, the common purpose and centre ground gradually disappeared and eventually - as this book compellingly relates - the relationships soured too.

Anne Applebaum traces a familiar history in an unfamiliar way, looking at the trajectories of individuals caught up in the public events of the last three decades. When politics become polarized, which side do you back? If you are a journalist, an intellectual, a civic leader, how do you deal with the re-emergence of authoritarian or nationalist ideas in your country? When your leaders appropriate history, or pedal conspiracies, or eviscerate the media and the judiciary, do you go along with it?

Twilight of Democracy is a new kind of political writing, an essay that mixes the personal and the political and brings a fresh understanding to the dynamics of public life in Europe and America, both now and in the past.

© Anne Applebaum 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

 20th Century Europe Modern Politics & Government World Socialism Thought-Provoking Imperialism Liberalism Middle East Capitalism Interwar Period

Critic reviews

Applebaum's reflections on the anti-democratic pandemic sweeping our world offer an extraordinary mix of personal witness and dispassionate historical analysis.... It's unlikely that anyone will ever give us more sensitive or revealing insights on this question (John Connelly)
Heretics make the best writers. ... Applebaum can bring a candle into the darkness of the populist right ... her writing is an arsenal that stores the sharpest weapons to hand. (Nick Cohen)
Applebaum's progress ...has yielded an enviable supply of raw material for her narrative. She mines her sources doggedly....Twilight of Democracy is a rather penetrating work of ethnography (Trevor Phillips)
Advancing her arguments with eloquence and personal testimony, Applebaum passionately decries the corrosion of liberal, open-society values in the last three decades. (Chris Patten)
written with deep insight, experience and wisdom. Definitely a very important book for understanding our troubled times and the fragility of our democracies (Elif Shafak)
Anne Applebaum's Twilight of Democracy is the most important non-fiction book of the year because it asks the most urgent question: why is the right wing in the West moving so far to the right? Why is it, at this point in history, so drawn to authoritarianism? Why has it given up on democracy?' (David Hare)
this engrossing account ... is a political book; it is also intensely personal, and the more powerful for it. (John Kampfner)
Applebaum, long an authority on the abuses of Communist and post-Communist Eastern Europe, in her new book Twilight of Democracy is unsparing in exposing the moral bankruptcy of Trumpian Republicanism. Her sharp pen is as persuasive as any in presenting the idea of the "west" as a morally serious project-and one whose loss we may come to mourn. (The world’s top 50 thinkers 2020)
A brilliant writer who sheds light on the most disturbing political phenomenon of our era: the rise of rightwing authoritarianism around the world... a cry of alarm and a call to arms.... We have been warned. (Martin Wolf)
readable, eloquent and passionate ... Applebaum knows what the enemy looks like from the inside, and how it thinks. This book may only be a start. We should cherish her. I think she has a lot more she can tell us. (Francis Beckett)
All stars
Most relevant
A great book - a personal, well-written, up-close analysis of the shift to populism and the extreme right (throughout Europe and beyond). Well observed and full of interesting details that highlight political and personal transformations of formerly optimistic and politically balanced individuals. How many more will mirror these transformations in future, both in Europe and beyond? From rational progressives & centrists to the illiberal extremes (both left and right) - and what will that society will look like, it's a worrying question that will linger long after reading this book.

Clear, heart-felt and incisive observations

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Applebaum’s rational and concise take down of the politics of populism is all the better for its simple, very personal stance. But one can’t help thinking that she’s missing the point. By decrying the likes of Trump and Johnson for being hustlers who cannot accept exceptionalism, she fails to acknowledge that exceptionalism in itself is built on a multitude of unfair social & economic systems. She, her husband and her now fractured group of friends have benefited from that system all their lives. They are only exceptional because they were given the chance to be. Is it any wonder that political hustlers are able to stoke the passions of the everyday man? It’s the only way these uneducated, unexceptional people can ruffle the feathers of the establishment.

Politics eating itself

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thanks so much Anne this was a brilliant read. the book is insightful and informative

brilliant insight, well worth reading

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An essential listen in uncertain times. Anne Applebaum's journey and observations gives us an impelling overview of decades of liberal gaines and losses. Great story and well read. A must read!

Essential listen in uncertain times

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I could have listened to more, but for a short book, it packs a lot in. if you want to make some sense of the political landscape across many western democracies playing out before us with the rise of nationalism, then this is one perspective that I suggest will help.

essential reading

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