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The Road to Unfreedom

Russia, Europe, America

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About this listen

Random House presents the audiobook edition of The Road to Unfreedom, written and read by Timothy Snyder.

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 repression. 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.

‘A brilliant and disturbing analysis, which should be read by anyone wishing to understand the political crisis currently engulfing the world.’ YUVAL NOAH HARARI, author of SAPIENS and HOMO DEUS

 21st Century Modern Politics & Government Russia Russian & Soviet World Socialism Imperialism Soviet Union Scary War Military Middle East Cyber Warfare Capitalism

Critic reviews

A brilliant and disturbing analysis, which should be read by anyone wishing to understand the political crisis currently engulfing the world (YUVAL NOAH HARARI, author of SAPIENS and HOMO DEUS)
This story of how Russia dismantled democracy, and the man who set its template for fake news, is chilling and persuasive ... unignorable... a disturbing and persuasive insight... Snyder's forensic examination of, for example the news cycle that followed the shooting down of flight MH17 makes essential reading ... Meticulously researched and footnoted. (Tim Adams)
One of the best…brisk, conceptually convincing account of democracy’s retreat in the early years of 21st century (Luke Harding)
Snyder’s central thesis is a strong one… Vividly and insightfully told. (Edward Lucas)
A rollercoaster world calls for a news editor’s skills in processing facts and a philosopher’s ability to dissect ideologies. He has both.
The Road to Unfreedom is a sprawling epic that veers from Dark Ages Kiev to modern day Washington and back again. (Oliver Bullough)
Snyder’s informative timeline of events on the ground in Ukraine is vivid, and offers a much greater understanding of how this conflict emerged than we got in most English-language news coverage (Katrina Gulliver)
Timothy Snyder… offers unexpected insights into the seemingly familiar events of the past decade (Anne Applebaum)
Timothy Snyder is one of the world’s top historians… [The Road to Unfreedom is a] bracing analysis (William Leith)
If there’s one book to help explain the bloody mess we find ourselves in…this is it… [Snyder] is a refreshing voice… [and] every chapter is rich with apercu… Every sentence smacks of careful thought, engaged concern, and urgency
All stars
Most relevant

Essential and a must read, the best nonfiction book of 2018

A nation that has never had actual freedom grows to create a culture that distrusts the very idea of democracy and individual rights; it has no place in its soul or in the very institutions that hold it together, and such a nation has been an empire it sees this very fact as a successful formula, a reason to conquer to dominate.

This book is the best book I have read about modern Russia aspirations and the philosophy that propels fuels its motivations. It will appear entirely alien to a western mind as it grows out a totalitarian logic and has been rumbling better minds than mine from the beginning of the century. We have never understood the power of a culture too reshape an ideology into its own soul and how that influence acts like a prism that separates and reconfigures the source. Marx had an idea, and it was implemented in Russia, and it mutated by Russia and its imperial past into a nightmarish totalitarian view that we in the west call Stalinism, but it was Russian communism; lamentably it was the only example of communism that spread through the world with the same nightmarish consequences. Now we have a Russian version of fascism inspired by the motherland and by Ivan Ilyin and put to practice by Putin, some of you will have spotted the similarities to the old Russian Soviet similarities and thought that you were looking for a continuation; the only continuation here is the Russian justification to grow in power and the nationalistic need to impose it.

The book deals first with the philosophy and the adoption of it into Putin's new Russia; we move into the history of it's in implementation and how it has been utilised in various military conflicts and how it has developed into an asymmetric form of warfare with the west and its institutions. The penetration of the American model and the destabilisation of Europe are discussed and explained in chronological order.

Russia does not need to win a conventional war if it can destabilise our nations from within by supporting the extremes and the growth of conspiracy theories that make impossible, ordinary logical discourse or understanding of reality, the examples and proof have all been provided in smaller conflicts and are described in greater detail, including cyber attacks to entire nations that have been very effective.


From Russian communism to Russian fascism & chaos

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Detailed, incisive and gripping history of modern Russian / Ukrainian history alongside Trump’s assault on democratic process.

Clever guy

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Superbly researched in multilingual sources, a gripping account of Putin’s chillingly evil project to destroy Western democracy, from Georgia and Ukraine to Brexit, Trump, Germany and Poland.

Superb, very well researched

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An eye-opening historic account of Russia's lurch to autocracy, and a much needed warning to the west that it faces an enemy that has already chosen to be at war with us, even if that is not what we wished. Props to Tim for narrating himself. I find in general audiobooks are better when the author narrates. The content is very well reasoned generally, but sometimes Tim tries too hard to express things in a fancy way. But that's a very small stylistic gripe. A must-listen for anyone who cares about the future direction of liberal democracy.

Prescient, and worrying

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We are probably all aware that nations are influencing other nations. In the past through lobbying and espionage. Now through much more subtle and effective methods like social media and other automated processes. Snyder is giving a factual insight in Russian influence. And not just from a recent perspective, but he goes back in history and reviews how this has developed. Very interesting and insightful.

Fascinating and informative

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