On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the 20th Century | Timothy Snyder

If none of us is willing to die for freedom, we will all die under tyranny.

This book is an intellectual guide to confronting a danger that is much closer to us than it seems at first glance: tyranny.

Drawing on the experiences of Nazi Germany, Stalin's USSR, communist regimes in Poland and Czechoslovakia, and Putin's Russia, Timothy Snyder analyzes the nature of tyranny and shows the logic by which it arises and intensifies.

"On Tyranny" is a cautionary tale written during Donald Trump's first term as president and expanded upon after his failed attempt to storm the Capitol. Looking back on the events that followed, the reader can easily see the historian's foresight and draw his own additional lessons from this work. The key one is the realization of everyone's personal responsibility for counteracting real evil.

Timothy Snyder is an American historian, writer, and public intellectual, and a professor at the University of Toronto, Canada. His research interests focus on the history of 20th-century Eastern Europe, particularly Ukraine, Poland, and Russia, as well as on the study of nationalism, totalitarianism, and the Holocaust.

Key works by Timothy Snyder have been published in Ukrainian, including: “Reflections on the Twentieth Century” (co-authored with Tony Judt), “The Path to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America”, “On Tyranny. Twenty Lessons of the 20th Century. Graphic Adaptation”, “Our Ailment. Lessons of Freedom from a Hospital Diary”, “Bloody Lands. Europe between Hitler and Stalin”, “Black Earth. The Holocaust as History and Warning”, “The Red Prince”, “On Freedom”.