On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

By Timothy Snyder

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A “bracing” (Vox) guide for surviving and resisting America’s turn towards authoritarianism, from “a rising public intellectual unafraid to make bold connections between past and present” (The New York Times)

“Timothy Snyder reasons with unparalleled clarity, throwing the past and future into sharp relief. He has written the rare kind of book that can be read in one sitting but will keep you coming back to help regain your bearings.”—Masha Gessen

The Founding Fathers tried to protect us from the threat they knew, the tyranny that overcame ancient democracy. Today, our political order faces new threats, not unlike the totalitarianism of the twentieth century. We are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience.

On Tyranny is a call to arms and a guide to resistance, with invaluable ideas for how we can preserve our freedoms in the uncertain years to come.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Crown
• Release date: Feb 28, 2017
• ISBN: 9780804190121

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.

Book preview

Cover for On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Author, Timothy Snyder

Also by Timothy Snyder

Nationalism, Marxism, and Modern Central Europe: A Biography of Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz (1872–1905)

Wall Around the West: State Borders and Immigration Controls in the United States and Europe (ed. with Peter Andreas)

The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569–1999

Sketches from a Secret War: A Polish Artist’s Mission to Liberate Soviet Ukraine

The Red Prince: The Secret Lives of a Habsburg Archduke

Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin

Thinking the Twentieth Century (with Tony Judt)

Stalin and Europe: Imitation and Domination, 1928–1953 (ed. with Ray Brandon)

Ukrainian History, Russian Policy, and European Futures (in Russian and Ukrainian)

The Politics of Life and Death (in Czech)

The Balkans as Europe: The Nineteenth Century (ed. with Katherine Younger)

Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning

The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America

Our Malady: Lessons in Liberty from a Hospital Diary

On Freedom

Book Title, On Tyranny, Subtitle, Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Author, Timothy Snyder, Imprint, Crown

Copyright © 2017 by Timothy Snyder

Published in the United States by Crown, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

Penguin Random House values and supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader. Please note that no part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems.

Crown and the Crown colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Tim Duggan Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, in 2017.

ISBN 9780804190114

Ebook ISBN 9780804190121

Book design by Lauren Dong, adapted for ebook

Cover design by Christopher Brand

crownpublishing.com

ep_prh_7.3a_154110473_c0_r0

Contents

Epigraph

Prologue: History and Tyranny

1. Do not obey in advance.

2. Defend institutions.

3. Beware the one-party state.

4. Take responsibility for the face of the world.

5. Remember professional ethics.

6. Be wary of paramilitaries.

7. Be reflective if you must be armed.

8. Stand out.

9. Be kind to our language.

10. Believe in truth.

11. Investigate.

12. Make eye contact and small talk.

13. Practice corporeal politics.

14. Establish a private life.

15. Contribute to good causes.

16. Learn from peers in other countries.

17. Listen for dangerous words.

18. Be calm when the unthinkable arrives.

19. Be a patriot.

20. Be as courageous as you can.

Epilogue: History and Liberty

About the Author

_154110473_

In politics, being deceived is no excuse.

—Leszek Kołakowski

Prologue

History and Tyranny

History does not repeat, but it does instruct. As the Founding Fathers debated our Constitution, they took instruction from the history they knew. Concerned that the democratic republic they envisioned would collapse, they contemplated the descent of ancient democracies and republics into oligarchy and empire. As they knew, Aristotle warned that inequality brought instability, while Plato believed that demagogues exploited free speech to install themselves as tyrants. In founding a democratic republic upon law and establishing a system of checks and balances, the Founding Fathers sought to avoid the evil that they, like the ancient philosophers, called tyranny. They had in mind the usurpation of power by a single individual or group, or the circumvention of law by rulers for their own benefit. Much of the succeeding political debate in the United States has concerned the problem of tyranny within American society: over slaves and women, for example.

It is thus a primary American tradition to consider history when our political order seems imperiled. If we worry today that the American experiment is threatened by tyranny, we can follow the example of the Founding Fathers and contemplate the history of other democracies and republics. The good news is that we can draw upon more recent and relevant examples than ancient Greece and Rome. The bad news is that the history of modern democracy is also one of decline and fall. Since the American colonies declared their independence from a British monarchy that the Founders deemed tyrannical, European history has seen three major democratic moments: after the First World War in 1918, after the Second World War in 1945, and after the end of communism in 1989. Many of the democracies founded at these junctures failed, in circumstances that in some important respects resemble our own.

History can familiarize, and it can warn. In the

Reviews for On Tyranny

[blintnatc · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

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[vguy_6 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Sobering, well informed, cool but with a sense of foreboding. Written soon after Trump‘s first arrival in the presidency. Now he’s back and his actions fulfil to the letter what the author foretells. Voice activation put in the word “tears.”. The author scarcely mentions the president’s name describing what all dictators especially Hitler consolidated their power.

[ecataldi-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Necessary reading! If you are an American living through these troubled times then this small book is a must read! It really packs a punch for being so little. It's thought provoking, engaging, angering, and so timely. If you value being a free citizen then please read this! It's bite sized reading so there is no excuse not to read this and think deeply on the value and importance of being free!

[precaf · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

There is nothing to disagree with in this slim volume. The examples, mainly from the Third Reich, point to creeping fascism here in the good old USA. But there is also not much an attentive reader, much less an attentive citizen, hasn’t already noticed.

[v1v1enne · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Vital. Read this. Tell everyone you know to read it.

[kalliegrace · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Excellent. Can you all stop electing fascists now? Please?

[bibleblaster · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

How to survive the age of Trump and hopefully come out the other side with something better. This is not a test, folks. Repeat: this is not a test. You don't want to be telling your children and grandchildren, "I remember voting in the very last election..."

[katiekrug · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"When exactly was the 'again' in the slogan, 'Make America great again'? It is, sadly, the same 'again' that we find in 'Never again.'"

Timothy Snyder, a leading historian of Central and Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and the Holocaust, has surveyed our current political landscape and offers 20 lessons and warnings about the precipice upon which we find ourselves. Some of the parallels he draws between where we are now and where countries in Europe found themselves in the early 1930s with the rise of Fascism and the late 1940s with the spread of Communism (as well as what happened with the collapse of the USSR and the later rise of Putin) are chilling. But his overarching point is that we have the benefit of learning from history, if only we pay attention. To that end, I encourage everyone to read this, if you have not already. It's very short and a quick read, but one I know I will be referring to often in the years ahead.

4 stars

"When we repeat the same words and phrases that appear in the daily media, we accept the absence of a larger framework. To have such a framework requires more concepts, and having more concepts requires reading. So get the screens out of your room and surround yourself with books. The characters in Orwell's and Bradbury's books could not do this - but we still can."

[melydia_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read this whole book (which admittedly is not long - 126 pages and smaller dimensions than a mass market paperback) in a single sitting. It was simultaneously sobering, chilling, and hopeful. I think its brevity is an asset, actually - there are so many "omg you need to read this!" books out there that get dismissed because no one has time for a 400-page treatise, no matter how life-changing. Everyone has time to read this book. And they should. The parallels between the 1930s and today are plain. The very first lesson of the book - "Do not obey in advance" - particularly struck me, as coworkers and friends struggle with how to react to the flurry of recent changes and orders. In the end, the message of this book is clear: yes, the danger is real, but yes, we can defeat it.

[rajivc_18 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This short book by Timothy Snyder is brilliant. The lessons are clear, and it is up to us to imbibe them and implement them. I like the book because it is short and pithy, with no words wasted. Many authors may have given in to the temptation to write a long tome with many examples. In such cases, the lessons get buried underneath mountains of word salad.
I am glad Timothy Snyder did not give in to the temptation: the book is better.
And hey, if you want to buy the book, buy the illustrated edition!

[bornanalog · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of the most overlooked aspects of this book is simply its size. It is a small format book, designed to replicate those pocket US Constitutions that some people love to whip out and wave in your face, typically when they are trying to defend their right to open carry a rocket launcher. But that format similarity is also to say that this is the book that every US student should be made to study along with the Constitution, because it details how appallingly vulnerable the US system is to an authoritarian takeover. That should not be news at this point in time, but large parts of the US population, including many liberals, still don't get it. If I started pulling out my favorite quotes form his book I would never stop, so I won't. Instead, just buy it, read it, learn from it, and put it into practice. Most importantly, learn lesson 1 (I'm looking at you Washington Post and LA Times): don't obey in advance.

[wellred2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Snyder is a respected historian and lays out warnings: post-truth is pre-fascism. But also provides information on how to resist: don't quietly go along with what you think the regime wants before it even asks. Also, be weird because authoritarianism requires conformity and if you are weird, if you don't conform, you are less likely to begin believing the lies of the regime, but also resist it.

The book is both practical and terrifying and should absolutely be read by everyone in the United States who cares about democracy and the current political crisis in this country.

[tommcgreevy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In response to the election of Trump as President, Snyder suggests 20 things that can be done to undermine the evolution of the US into a tyrannical state.

[judygibson-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Are you still thinking it can't happen here? Learn how it has happened "there" in the past.

[syncione · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Essential reading.

[steve02476 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Recommended by a friend. I liked parts of it, but a lot of it just seemed kind of fuzzy. Good ideas about how to resist governmental authoritarianism, I guess, but it seemed like just common sense in a gauzy poetical covering.

[markm2315 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Sound advice that almost seems like it is was padded at the end.

[jpe9 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A must read.

[marklacy-355086 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It has become a cliché to quote George Santayana's dictum that "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." It is unfortunate - if not tragic - to hear history as an important part of school curricula spurned. Worse yet, as author and Yale historian Timothy Snyder tells us in his new book, "On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century" (Tim Duggan Books, 2017), democracy is in danger if we do not take historical lessons to heart.

"The Founding Fathers," writes Snyder, "tried to protect us from the threat they knew, the tyranny that overcame ancient democracy. Today, our political order faces new threats, not unlike the totalitarianism of the twentieth century. We are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from the experience."

"On Tyranny" is a short book but is one which the reader should reread again and again. Snyder packs a lot of warning into his words, words that need to seep in for us to become fully awake to our clear and present danger. There are twenty chapters, or "lessons," each of which is titled with a maxim: "Do not obey in advance." "Take responsibility for the face of the world." "Believe in truth." "Listen for dangerous words." And, perhaps the most chilling, "Be calm when the unthinkable arrives." Each chapter is introduced with a few remarks about how to put that chapter's maxim into action.

We must learn from the mistakes of the twentieth century, Snyder admonishes us. We must not take democracy for granted, or fall victim to naïve optimism that because democracy is so important, it is not vulnerable. Wake up, says Snyder. The wolves are at the door.

It would be impractical to comment on every one of Snyder's lessons, so allow me to select one as an illustration: "Investigate." Snyder encourages us all to investigate. "The individual who investigates is also the citizen who builds. The leader who dislikes the investigators is a potential tyrant." And truth? Snyder does not mince words: "Like Hitler, the president used the word lies to mean statements of fact not to his liking, and presented journalism as a campaign against himself." What is our responsibility as citizens? "Since in the age of the internet we are all publishers, each of us bears some private responsibility for the public's sense of truth." Snyder says to verify information ourselves, and carefully choose trustworthy journalists.

Snyder's message is loud and clear: we must defend democracy, we must do it now, and there are ways to accomplish that. I can't imagine how anyone could not take this to heart.

[donhazelwood · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This should be required reading for all Americans who care about the Constitution and our current state of political affairs.

[dreesie-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This little book is useful and helpful and answers the all-important question: what can I do? I have criticized other books and shows on various topics for not giving an answer or any suggestions. This book is all answers and explanations.

Of course, I am reading this in 2021 and it is specifically addressed to citizens under the 45th president--and it refers to "the president" as such. This is not so much a criticism, but we could definitely use a new edition! Because the threat is still very real.

Otherwise, my only critique is that his examples are all European--and he mostly refers to 1930s Germany and Putin's Russia. The author is a historian of European history and serves on a Holocaust Memorial Museum Committee. Or his he using examples he thinks most Americans "know", and countries closest to the United States in...what? Because what about using Chile or Argentina as examples? Or any of the many other countries that have gone from democracy to tyranny?

[atdcross · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great nuggets of wisdom to discern methods used by those inclined to be tyrants and how to head it off protecting our fragile democracy, especially in light of Trump's attempted coup d'état on 11/6/2020.

[jamestomasino · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

There are excellent parallels to modern issues within these pages, but very little organizing principle. It begins as a warning on general terms and then quickly focuses on the American presidency. Overall the sentiment is good and the read is quick but there's not enough substance to my tastes.

[librolindsay · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Snyder's eloquence, accessibility, and academic authority shows how comfortably the current state of US affairs rests in parallel to the fascist regimes in Germany, Russia, Czechoslovakia, and other countries of the 20th century. His message is highly quotable and motivating. This is a warning; this is fodder for your resistance, your conversations with supporters of our current government and those who urge banalities such as "This will pass," or "It's only four years," or "But at least we have a system of checks and balances firmly in place" (a complacency that Snyder succinctly censures). As many others are echoing, I, too, read this in a sitting, and I also read it within the context of the peaceful protests in my own city of St. Louis of the brutal disregard of and unchecked police violence against black people being met with unchecked police violence and a controversially-elected mayor who is as yet refusing to take a firm stance against this violence. I think the parallels here are convincing as well.

With this in mind, what I think is maybe most effective in this book is its focus on Nazi Germany. In my conversations with people who don't understand "what all the fuss is about," it seems like they (who aren't out-and-out Klan sympathizers and/or neo Nazis) all agree that Hitler was bad. A lot of headway I've seemed to make in talking with complacent ones has been in discussing these historic traumas that have been subsequently romanticized by white, Christian Americans and relating them to current events and the suppression of other marginalized peoples. Snyder will help you formulate your discussions.

This text strikes me as most vital to white folks--we are the ones responsible for the United States as it exists today. For those of us who are already in the streets, who are already having direct conversations with complacent folks, who are donating to and volunteering time with civil liberty charities, who use our professions and personal time to speak out against tyranny--On Tyranny will provide us with more specifics to use in our work and to remind us to keep fighting for justice because there is always more work to do--within ourselves and our communities. For those who have been sitting in complacency, who have been unsure whether or how they should resist, I hope they come away with a comprehensive understanding of the book's message and a more vocal stance. (I become more disillusioned each day that alternative facts assholes will ever be willing to look beyond their own insecurities. They are just fine with tyranny.)

I checked this out from the library and can't wait to return it so that it goes to the next person to spread the word. I desperately want to own a copy and mark it up. And buy another copy. And give it away to someone. And buy another. And give it away. Ad finitum.

[kcshankd · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Sobering, finally read in a day after having it nearby for a couple years. I fear that 2022 and especially 2024 will prove a further test than 2020 did, as Republicans are no longer hiding their contempt for election officials and the will of the electorate.

[villemezbrown · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I'm all for any diatribe against Donald Trump (though he weirdly goes unnamed in the text of the book), even if it is a bit fragmented and, by necessity, so deeply steeped Godwin's Law. Written after the 2016 U.S. presidential election, it's chilling how close Snyder's predictions came to fruition in the 2020 election and the January 6, 2021, insurrection.

[paul_s-289480 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Made of hyperbole and hypocrisy. Stay salty.

[scottjpearson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

“You should read this.”

Those simple words ran across my mind as I finished page 126 of this wonderful book. I am no political scientist though I follow current events tightly. This book, written in 2017 in the aftermath of the election of Donald Trump, reminds us how fragile history can be. By looking at the challenges of the present, it looks at how democracy was subverted by tyranny in the twentieth century.

Snyder provides twenty lessons to readers based upon global failures of the 1900s – for example, the rise of Nazi Germany, the rise of Stalinist Russia, and the rise of Putin’s Russia. Make no mistake, this book, despite its title evoking the twentieth century, is thoroughly grounded in twenty-first-century events. It uses those current events as a prism to recall prior history.

This book is readable and accessible to the masses. Much as The Federalist Papers did for the US Constitution, this book attempts to do for 2016-2020. It seeks to remind us of the choices we face in the voting booth and in our lives and encourages us to make those choices with confidence. Snyder, by trade a professor of history at Yale, seeks to imprint upon us the fragility of history. As with the twentieth century, only a few wrong decisions can get us far off course.

Snyder concludes by discussing the “politics of inevitability” that seemed to envelop American discourse in the early twenty-first century. “Democracy will inevitably triumph,” these false words told us. The rise of authoritarianism in America laid bare this false creed. To remind us of our duty, the author – in a sort of jeremiad – calls us to return to the study of history in an attempt to make more history. Citing Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Snyder calls the now-informed reader to embrace the challenges of the present. Will we listen?

[snash_44 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A crucial book for our present times, reminding us that the collapse of a democracy including ours can happen and that it takes complicity for that to happen. The 20 lessons suggest ways that we, the ordinary persons, can counter that possibility. Not real detailed but easily digested.

[swmproblems · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

LOVED IT!!!! There's not a better time to read this book than right now! The amount of time that it will take you to read this book is nothing, maybe an hour or two at the most- for people who read slow like I do. That is doable for anyone, regardless of how busy you may be. The information and urgency inside these pages is so important for the current times.