This book by a noted academic with deep personal connections in Eastern Europe exposes the political evolution of Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union, from a nation apparently on the brink of a promising transition to western-style democracy, to the totalitarian, corrupt autocracy of Vladimir Putin.
Those of us in the West who had been ignoring post-Soviet Russian developments in the belief that democracy had become inevitable there need to read this book closely. Snyder pays particular attention to the 20th century fascist theoreticians who have been elevated back to prominence by Putin, and explores the tools, news media and institutions being used to destroy a fact-based political reality in Russia, in favor of an "eternal" regime with no succession plan, no accountability to the people, and no ability to look to history or objective facts to determine what is true and real.
It’s not surprising that Snyder has been in demand as a commentator on cable news the past few years, both during the Trump presidency, and again now as we watch the horrifying war launched by Putin and Russia upon Ukraine unfolding in real time. He has a deep understanding of the historical precedents for these events, as well as their theoretical underpinnings in the authoritarian traditions of Russia, the Soviet Union and elsewhere.
The playbook he describes is all depressingly familiar by now: undoubtedly totalitarian in its methods and effects, and unrestrained by the democratic and rational traditions (along with fact-based journalism) which still exist in the western world and free societies, but which have been under similar forms of attack here too in the past several decades. Recommended.
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