In this book, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and historian examines the dark underbelly, primarily economic, that connects autocracies around the world.

For the first time, emphasis is placed on the powerful networks and illicit relationships that connect Russia, China, Belarus, Iran, Venezuela, and other countries underground, and an international democratic activism is described that has begun to take shape in order to oppose them.

The book sheds light on the deep ties between modern autocracies, explains how autocratic leaders have tried to influence the economy and politics of democracies, and presents the democratic activists who have attempted and are attempting to resist.

Its pages include reporting, history, philosophy, and politics. The main goal of Applebaum is to explain this new global dichotomy that has formed between autocracies and democracies, and to initiate the discussion on how beleaguered democracies will manage to prevail.

International condemnation and economic sanctions cannot harm autocratic leaders. Even the opposition movements in autocratic countries, from Venezuela to Hong Kong and Moscow, can do little on their own.

Since the members of Autocracy Inc. are no longer connected by a common ideology, but only by a shared desire for power, wealth, and impunity.

Through this book, Anne Applebaum calls on democracies to radically readjust their policies to combat this new kind of threat.