Twilight of Democracy af Anne Applebaum (Bog)

Forfatter: Anne Applebaum
Sprog: Engelsk
Antal sider: 224
Forlag: Allen Lane
Udgivelsesår: 2020
Anne Applebaum is a leading historian of communism and a penetrating investigator of contemporary politics. Here she sets her sights on the big question, one with which she herself has been deeply engaged in both Europe and America: how did our democracy go wrong? This extraordinary document, written with urgency, intelligence and understanding, is her answer. Timothy Snyder Friendships torn. Ideals betrayed. Alliances broken. In this, her most personal book, a great historian explains why so many of those who won the battles for democracy or have spent their lives proclaiming its values are now succumbing to liars, thugs and crooks. Analysis, reportage and memoir, Twilight of Democracy fearlessly tells the shameful story of a political generation gone bad. David Frum In the years just before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall, people from across the political spectrum in Europe and America celebrated a great achievement, felt a common purpose and, very often, forged personal friendships. Yet over the following decades the euphoria evaporated, the common purpose and centre ground gradually disappeared, extremism rose once more and eventually - as this book compellingly relates - the relationships soured too. Anne Applebaum traces this history in an unfamiliar way, looking at the trajectories of individuals caught up in the public events of the last three decades. When politics becomes polarized, which side do you back? If you are a journalist, an intellectual, a civic leader, how do you deal with the re-emergence of authoritarian or nationalist ideas in your country? When your leaders appropriate history, or pedal conspiracies, or eviscerate the media and the judiciary, do you go along with it? Twilight of Democracy is an essay that combines the personal and the political in an original way and brings a fresh understanding to the dynamics of public life in Europe and America, both now and in the recent past.
Titel: Twilight of Democracy

Sammendrag: “Twilight of Democracy: The Failure of Politics and the Parting of Friends” er Anne Applebaums personlige og analytiske skildring af, hvorfor liberale demokratier i Europa og USA er kommet under pres efter optimismen i 1990’erne. Med udgangspunkt i sin egen omgangskreds beskriver hun, hvordan tidligere ligesindede journalister, politikere og intellektuelle har vendt sig mod autoritære og nationalkonservative projekter. Hun gennemgår udviklingen i Østeuropa, især Polen og Ungarn, men også Storbritannien og USA, og viser hvordan medieøkologi, polarisering, misinformation og opportunisme skaber grobund for illiberal demokrati og stærkmandsledere. Bogen blander historisk viden, politisk analyse, reportage og memoir og giver et kritisk billede af en politisk generation, der svigter de idealer om frihed, pluralisme og retsstat, som de tidligere forsvarede.
Type: Hardcover