Our Malady: Lessons in Liberty from a Hospital Diary

Written by Timothy Snyder

Narrated by Timothy Snyder

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller On Tyranny comes an impassioned condemnation of America's pandemic response and an urgent call to rethink health and freedom.

On December 29, 2019, historian Timothy Snyder fell gravely ill. Unable to stand, barely able to think, he waited for hours in an emergency room before being correctly diagnosed and rushed into surgery. Over the next few days, as he clung to life and the first light of a new year came through his window, he found himself reflecting on the fragility of health, not recognized in America as a human right but without which all rights and freedoms have no meaning.

And that was before the pandemic. We have since watched American hospitals, long understaffed and undersupplied, buckling under waves of ill patients. The federal government made matters worse through willful ignorance, misinformation, and profiteering. Our system of commercial medicine failed the ultimate test, and thousands of Americans died.

In this eye-opening cri de coeur, Snyder traces the societal forces that led us here and outlines the lessons we must learn to survive. In examining some of the darkest moments of recent history and of his own life, Snyder finds glimmers of hope and principles that could lead us out of our current malaise. Only by enshrining healthcare as a human right, elevating the authority of doctors and medical knowledge, and planning for our children’s future can we create an America where everyone is truly free.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
• Release date: Sep 8, 2020
• ISBN: 9780593347546

Timothy Snyder

Timothy Snyder es titular de la cátedra Housum de Historia en la Universidad de Yale, y fellow permanente del Instituto de Ciencias Humanas de Viena. Se doctoró en Oxford y ha sido investigador en las universidades de París, Viena, Varsovia y Harvard. Sus libros anteriores recibieron destacados premios. Es autor de Tierras de sangre. Europa entre Hitler y Stalin (Galaxia Gutenberg, 2011), traducido a trece idiomas, que recibió doce premios, entre ellos el Premio Hannah Arendt de Pensamiento Político, el Premio Leipzig para la Comprensión Europea y el Premio Emerson de Humanidades de la Academia Americana de las Artes y las Letras. Ayudó a Tony Judt a escribir una historia temática de las ideas políticas y de los intelectuales en política, Pensar el siglo XX (2012). Sus artículos académicos han aparecido en revistas como Past and Present y Journal of Cold War Studies, y también ha escrito en The New York Review of Books, Foreign Affairs, The Times Literary Supplement, The Nation y The New Republic, así como en The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune , The Wall Street Journal y otros periódicos. Es miembro del Comité de Conciencia del Memorial del Holocausto de Estados Unidos y del Consejo Asesor del Instituto Yivo de Investigaciones Judías. Sus libros El príncipe rojo. Las vidas secretas de un archiduque de Habsburgo (2014), Tierra negra. El Holocausto como historia y como advertencia (2015), Sobre la tiranía (2017) y El camino hacia la no libertad (2018) han sido publicados por Galaxia Gutenberg.

Reviews for Our Malady

[librarianlion · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

After nearly dying from a preventable post-appendectomy liver infection in a Connecticut hospital in 2019, Timothy Snyder draws upon his expertise on authoritarianism in the 20th century to declare the failure of our health care system is the consequence of a capitalist endemic. We are disproportionately sick and dying compared to our global peers, because our hospitals revolve around money, in which each patient is measured by profit. Snyder has such an approachable, down-to-earth writing style that this is a very quick read to spark passion for the wellbeing of our communities.

[streamsong_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Another serious but short non-fiction read from author [[Timothy Syder]], who also wrote the book [On Tyranny].

Snyder had a botched diagnoses in three different hospitals (granted the first hospital was in Germany). This led to a significant oversight that very nearly led to his death. During his prolonged hospitalization he also contracted Covid at the start of the pandemic.

At the third hospital, he arrived in the company of a black female doctor who asserted rightly to the staff that Snyder was very close to death. She was dismissed, in what Snyder believes was blatant racism on the part of Emergency Room staff.

Snyder has very serious allegations against the US health care system. He makes a strong case for healthcare as a right and advocates non-commercial health care for all.


“Black women often die in childbirth and so do their babies. The mortality rate of babies borne by African American women is higher than in Albania,, Kazakhstan, China and about seventy other countries. America as a whole does worse than Belarus, the most Soviet of the post-Soviet states; and Bosnia, an awkward creation of the Yugoslav Civil war – not to mention forty other countries. “ P14

“Our system of commercial medicine, dominated by private insurance, regional groups of private hospitals and other powerful interests, looks more and more like a numbers racket. We would like to think we have health care that incidentally involves some wealth transfer; what we actually have is wealth transfer that incidentally involves some health care.” P 14

“Our malady is particular to America. We die younger than people in twenty-three European countries; we die younger than people in Asia (Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Israel, Lebanon); we die younger than people in our hemisphere (Barbados, Costa Rica, Chile); we die younger than people in other countries with histories of British settlement (Canada, Australia, New Zealand)" P 14.

[pomo58 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Our Malady: Lessons in Liberty from a Hospital Diary by Timothy Snyder is a focused and thoughtful assessment of our current poor state of affairs with respect to healthcare along with ideas for remedying the situation.

Through his personal healthcare experience just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and background information on how we got to where we are, Snyder illustrates many of the flaws in both the system and our thinking about healthcare. While he also prescriptive it is not in a heavy-handed manner. He points out what can and should be done to correct a problem right after he has elaborated the problem. There may not be a quick easy fix but it is not that hard to fix if we changed from a healthcare system with profits as the goal to a healthcare system with, I dunno, maybe health as a goal.

If you tend to read books that have endnotes without always reading them, I would recommend reading them in this case. Most are still simply citations but a few are gems of clarification about a term or idea he used.

Highly recommended for anyone who cares about the United States' miserable healthcare system. Far more expensive than other countries with considerably poorer results and outcomes. Why, unless you're one of the ones profiting off of other people dying, would you support profit-driven healthcare over health driven healthcare?

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.