And while Americans tend to assume that democracy is inherently stable and their government institutions are strong enough to withstand antidemocratic attacks, this is not true. In his Prologue, Snyder echoes this fear and notes that democratic regimes have always fallen to tyranny ever since the very concepts of democracy and tyranny were invented in ancient Greece. Indeed, this bestselling book began as a Facebook post after Trump’s election, when many Americans were starting to worry that Trump’s political ideology and rhetorical style closely resembled those of 20th-century fascists and contemporary dictators around the world. In On Tyranny, a short guide to 20 different strategies that citizens can use to defend democracy against an authoritarian government, historian Timothy Snyder looks to 20th-century Europe in an effort to help 21st-century Americans cope with Donald Trump’s presidency.
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