![]() ![]() His first visit came in 2014, a few years after he published Bloodlands, a provocative and emotionally devastating account of Nazi and Soviet atrocities, which established him, in the words of one reviewer, as “perhaps the most talented younger historian of modern Europe working today”. Though he is not a natural gladhander, Snyder had attended the conference before. Bill and Hillary Clinton, Gordon Brown, Elton John and Richard Branson had all participated in previous years, and the roster for the 2022 meeting included the American national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, and Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google. Funded by a Ukrainian oligarch, the conference had become an occasional stopover for the gladhanding global elite. Snyder had come to speak at an annual conference, Yalta European Strategy (YES), which was founded in 2004 to promote ties with Europe. You could get a haircut at a barbershop, or hear standup at a comedy club, or sunbathe on the shores of the Dnieper River. Life, while not normal, was regaining some of its prewar rhythms. The first months of the war had gone relatively well for the Ukrainians – a fact that surprised many observers, but not Snyder – and by September, Kyiv was no longer in imminent danger of occupation. Air raid warnings blared from phones in pockets and handbags. There were sandbags everywhere, concrete roadblocks and steel “hedgehogs” designed to stop Russian tanks. On disembarking at the Kyiv-Pasazhyrskyi station, he found the city transformed by war. In the decades that followed, Kyiv had grown bigger and more interesting, and Snyder, who is now 53, had become an eminent historian of eastern Europe. Snyder knew the city well: he’d been visiting since the early 1990s, when he was a graduate student and the newly post-Soviet Ukrainian capital was dark and provincial. does not descend into tyranny.Last September, seven months after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Yale historian Timothy Snyder took a 16-hour train ride from Poland to Kyiv. ![]() Overall, he argues that Americans need to better understand the history of Europe’s Fascist and Communist regimes to ensure that the United States. He also provides other historical examples, most notably from Poland and Czechoslovakia of successful efforts to resist tyranny. Snyder, a historian with extensive background in the Holocaust, makes several comparisons between Trump’s actions and those Adolf Hitler took in his early days in power. Throughout the book, he urges vigilance and constant involvement in the democratic process. Finally, the author explores the ways tyrants may manipulate their citizens into genuinely supporting their actions, most notably through the use of catastrophic events to justify a choice between freedom and safety. Resisting tyranny requires collective effort and a careful study of those who have previous experience with it. Next, Snyder emphasizes the importance of building relationships, both within communities and across international borders. In this section, he also sharply criticizes the actions of President Trump. ![]() Third, the author describes verifiable truth as the ultimate enemy of tyrants and urges the reader to seek out and support high-quality, investigative journalism. Secondly, Snyder addresses civil servants, arguing that their cooperation is essential for a tyranny to function thus they should refuse to obey immoral orders or facilitate the deprivation of human rights. He notes that tyrants often first gain power through elections and then gradually increase their control over the political system through the tacit consent of their citizens. The first is an argument against unconscious compliance and submission to tyranny. Snyder’s lessons can be grouped into five broad categories. It is written as a reaction to the election of President Donald Trump, whom the author criticizes extensively. ![]() The book is predicated on the idea that the United States, despite popular opinion, is not uniquely immune to the risk of tyrannical government. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder is a series of historical lessons the author believes are essential for Americans to learn in order to resist the rise of tyranny in the United States. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. The following version of this book was used to create this study guide: Snyder. ![]()
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