The election of Trump to the presidency of America and the already visible blows he has dealt to democracy and its institutions have alarmed politicians, intellectuals, scientists, artists, and citizens in the USA and around the world.

Timothy Snyder, a historian who has dealt with the darkest periods of European history, has written an informative book that sounds a loud alarm. Within its twenty chapters, it recalls a hundred years of history, with milestones being the emergence of fascism, Nazism, and communism.

It places particular emphasis on how these regimes were established, how they were imposed on peoples who watched, as if hypnotized, one violation of democratic principles after another, how they ensnared ordinary citizens and turned them into instruments of their deceitful purposes.

This book shows how imperceptibly, how gradually, without being noticed from the outset, a democratic regime can lose its bearings and fall apart. The subversion of democracy is never immediate. It happens through small, insidious steps, invoking the "will of the people," with the masquerading of authoritarianism as actions that supposedly reflect the common sentiment, but prove to be devastating to freedom.

The vigilance of all of us is necessary.