Autocracy Inc.
The Dictators Who Want to Run the World
Checking Availibility...Description
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER o A New York Times and Globe and Mail bestseller
From the Pulitzer-prize winning, New York Times bestselling author, an alarming account of how autocracies work together to undermine the democratic world, and how we should organize to defeat them.
We think we know what an autocratic state looks like: There is an all-powerful leader at the top. He controls the police. The police threaten the people with violence. There are evil collaborators, and maybe some brave dissidents.
But in the 21st century, that bears little resemblance to reality. Nowadays, autocracies are underpinned not by one dictator, but by sophisticated networks composed of kleptocratic financial structures, surveillance technologies, and professional propagandists, all of which operate across multiple regimes, from China to Russia to Iran. Corrupt companies in one country do business with corrupt companies in another. The police in one country can arm and train the police in another, and propagandists share resources and themes, pounding
home the same messages about the weakness of democracy and the evil of America.
International condemnation and economic sanctions cannot move the autocrats. Even popular opposition movements, from Venezuela to Hong Kong to Moscow, don't stand a chance. The members of Autocracy, Inc, aren't linked by a unifying ideology, like communism, but rather a common desire for power, wealth, and impunity. In this urgent treatise, which evokes George Kennan's essay calling for "containment" of the Soviet Union, Anne Applebaum calls for the democracies to fundamentally reorient their policies to fight a new kind of threat.
About this Author
After seventeen years as a columnist at The Washington Post, ANNE APPLEBAUM became a staff writer at The Atlantic in January 2020. She is the author of four critically acclaimed and award-winning books: Twilight of Democracy, Red Famine, Iron Curtain, and Gulag, winner of the Pulitzer Prize. She divides her time between Poland, where her husband is foreign minister, and Washington, D.C.
Reviews
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER o A New York Times and Globe and Mail bestseller
"Autocracy, Inc. offers a valuable account of contemporary disinformation, particularly, the technologies, tactics and networks that make it an effective tool in shaping domestic and foreign politics. . . . her insight into the particularities of these operations and their interconnectedness is the most compelling and valuable part of Applebaum's book. . . . a sophisticated series of financial, technological, military and police operations at home and abroad."
--David Moscrop, Globe and Mail
"Anne Applebaum's far-sighted book reveals an international network of autocrats who seek to subvert democracy in what has become a decentralized global struggle, with shifting alliances and no monolithic forces of good and evil. But it is also a practical manual packed with specific proposals to combat autocracy, in all its nefarious guises. Now it's up to us--the proponents of democracy-to step up and put these ideas into action."
- Garry Kasparov, chess grandmaster and author of Winter is Coming
"Anne Applebaum is one of the most insightful observers of dictatorship, autocracy, tyranny, authoritarianism and democracy in the world today. Autocracy, Inc. is a wakeup call and offers a way ahead to anyone interested in preserving the democratic values and culture that have been fought for at a high price in blood and treasure for over 200 years."
- General Mark Milley, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
"Anne Applebaum has written a book that is bold, powerful and important. Impunity is on the march because of the forces and tactics exposed here. We don't just need to read this book - we need to act on it."
- David Miliband, President and CEO of the International Rescue Committee and former Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom
"In Autocracy, Inc., Anne Applebaum forces us to confront an uncomfortable truth: The world's dictatorships work together, and they work against democracies. We need to be thinking, now, about how to fight back."
- Carl Bildt, former Prime Minister of Sweden
If the product is in stock at the store nearest you, we suggest you call ahead to have it set aside for you, or you may place an order online and choose in-store pickup.
