-
Access Our
Most Anticipated
Books of 2025!
Summary | Excerpt | Reviews | Beyond the book | Read-Alikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio
Book Reviewed by:A bestselling, National Book Award–winning journalist's bracing elucidation of our tumultuous times.
In the run-up to the 2016 election, Masha Gessen stood out from other journalists for the ability to convey the ominous significance of Donald Trump's speech and behavior, unprecedented in a national candidate. Within forty-eight hours of his victory, the essay "Autocracy: Rules for Survival" had gone viral, and Gessen's coverage of his norm-smashing presidency became essential reading for a citizenry struggling to wrap their heads around the unimaginable. Thanks to the special perspective that is the legacy of a Soviet childhood and two decades covering the resurgence of totalitarianism in Russia, Gessen has a sixth sense for signs of autocracy—and the unique cross-cultural fluency to delineate its emergence to Americans. Now, as the 2020 race takes shape, this incisive book provides an indispensable overview of the calamitous trajectory of the past few years. Gessen not only highlights the corrosion of the media, the judiciary, and the cultural norms we hoped would save us but also tells us the story of how a short few years have changed us, from a people who saw ourselves as a nation of immigrants to a populace haggling over a border wall, heirs to a degraded sense of truth, meaning, and possibility. Surviving Autocracy is an inventory of ravages but also a beacon to recovery—or to enduring, and resisting, an ongoing assault.
There have been numerous narratives of the Trump presidency published in recent months that simply rehash the major events of the past four years and offer aggrieved commentary on various injustices but little else of substance. Gessen does recount some of these events (in a time frame spanning Trump's election up to the impeachment hearings), but also presents a compelling thesis, that the president is intentionally working to erode public faith in any facet of government that is not him, and then meticulously supports it with evidence. Gessen powerfully rebukes critics who have claimed at various points that Trump might mature into his role or that he might be too incompetent to do any lasting damage to the country, declaring, "Trump's incompetence is militant. It is not a factor that might mitigate the threat he poses: it is the threat itself."..continued
Full Review
(765 words)
This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For full access,
become a member today.
(Reviewed by Lisa Butts).
In Surviving Autocracy, Masha Gessen places the presidency of Donald Trump in an international context, drawing comparisons with other world leaders who have demonstrated a penchant for authoritarianism and oligarchy. One of these leaders is Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, who has been the subject of scrutiny and ire (but little action) from the European Union.
Viktor Orbán served his first term as prime minister from 1998 to 2002, after which control shifted to the Hungarian Socialist Party, led by Prime Minister Péter Medgyessy. The Socialist Party's administration was marred by scandal and economic mismanagement, and Orbán, running as the representative of the conservative Fidesz Party, was voted in for...
This "beyond the book" feature is available to non-members for a limited time. Join today for full access.
If you liked Surviving Autocracy, try these:
by Alexei Navalny
Published 2024
The powerful and moving memoir of a fearless political opposition leader who paid the ultimate price for his beliefs.
by Joshua Yaffa
Published 2021
From a leading journalist in Moscow and correspondent for The New Yorker, a groundbreaking portrait of modern Russia and the inner struggles of the people who sustain Vladimir Putin's rule.
I have lost all sense of home, having moved about so much. It means to me now only that place where the books are ...
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny
An indispensable voice of and for this moment.
