‘A kind of survival book, a kind of manual for diagnosing symptoms related to the loss of democracy and what tyranny and authoritarianism look like up close’ - Rachel Maddow

‘These 128 pages are a brief introduction to everything important we could have learned from the history of the last century, and all that we seem to have forgotten’ - Observer

History does not repeat itself, but it teaches. In the twentieth century, European democracies collapsed into fascism, Nazism, and communism. These were movements in which a leader or party claimed to give voice to the people, promised to protect them from global existential threats, and dismissed reason in favor of myth.

European history shows us that societies can break, democracies can fall, morality can collapse, and ordinary people can find themselves in unthinkable circumstances. History can familiarize us and it can warn us.

Today, we are no wiser than the Europeans who witnessed democracy surrender to totalitarianism in the twentieth century. But when the political order appears to be at risk, our advantage is that we can learn from their experience to resist the advance of tyranny. Now is a good time to do so.

Pages: 128, Dimensions: 13x13cm