On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

By Timothy Snyder (2017; revised 2024).

Snyder’s 20 lessons are pithy, disturbingly relevant, and worthwhile. But it his epilogue that is eye-opening. Snyder argues that modern Western culture has ignored the details of history, convinced that the triumph of liberal democracy and enlightenment thinking is inevitable, creating what he calls a politics of inevitability. We are now learning that never was the case, there have always been forces, now ascendant, urging us away from those ideals and instead towards past moments of greatness that never really existed; what Snyder calls the politics of eternity. He concludes “If young people do not begin to make history, politicians of eternity and inevitability will destroy it. And to make history, young Americans will have to know some.” So will us older Americans, I would add.

I read a hard copy of this book.