AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |
Back to Blog
On tyranny book1/6/2024 “We might be tempted to think that our democratic heritage protects us from ,” Snyder writes. The less-than-130-page book comprises 20 “lessons,” each with a title as concise as it is thought-provoking: “Do not obey in advance,” “Be kind to your language,” “Establish a private life.” Snyder, an award-winning author of books on mass murders committed by the Nazi and Soviet governments, illustrates his lessons with examples from the two regimes, examples that open our eyes to our misplaced complacency in our current society. “On Tyranny” is an expansion of a popular Facebook post on defending democracy that Snyder wrote following the US election. Though slim enough to fit in your pocket, this bestseller repeatedly drives home a sobering thesis: “Americans today are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism or communism in the twentieth century.” A newer title that these same readers might want to add to their reading lists is Yale University historian Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. Unsettled by what they saw as an unconventional government with unconventional policies, some readers turned to writers like Orwell in order to stay alert to any possible erosion of democracy. I see these images as silent witnesses they urge us to commit to remembering the stories that shape us, and they help us understand that history is more than just the past.Shortly after the November, 2016, election of Donald Trump to the US presidency, books like George Orwell classic "1984" and Sinclair Lewis's eerie "It Can't Happen Here" shot to the top of bookseller lists across the country. Some of the artifacts chosen for this book were found at flea markets and antique shops-depositories of our collective consciousness. I did so to emphasize that tyranny is universal and timeless. In a note included in the illustrated edition, Krug explains what she hoped to accomplish through her use of collages, sketches, comic strips, and embroidery: “I use a variety of visual styles and techniques to emphasize the fragmentary nature of memory and to acknowledge the emotive effects of historical events. . . . Krug is no stranger to tackling dark and complex subjects graphically her visual memoir “ Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home,” is an excavation of communal memory in postwar Germany and her family’s involvement in the Second World War. So it seems fitting that an illustrated edition of “ On Tyranny,” done in collaboration with the artist Nora Krug, has just been published this week. It has been like a map-the more I study its features, the more I understand where we have landed.” Trump may be out of the White House now, but the forces that sent him there have hardly disappeared from public life. As the New Yorker staff writer Sue Halpern wrote, in June, 2020, “For the past few years, I’ve dipped into ‘On Tyranny,’ finding it weirdly orienting at those times when I’ve barely recognized this country and its government, and when the vitriol and distrust that now cleave us have made me feel hopeless. For those who were looking for ways to combat the insidious creep of authoritarianism at home, Snyder’s book seemed to offer an informed and practical handbook. Trump’s Presidency, the historian Timothy Snyder published “ On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century,” a slim volume which interspersed maxims such as “Be kind to our language” and “Defend institutions” with biographical and historical sketches drawn from his deep knowledge of twentieth-century European history. In 2017, during the first year of Donald J.
0 Comments
Read More
Leave a Reply. |