Who is the author of The Road to Unfreedom?

The author of The Road to Unfreedom is Timothy Snyder.

Politics

The Road to Unfreedom Book Summary - The Road to Unfreedom Book explained in key points

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The Road to Unfreedom summary

Name: The Road to Unfreedom
Rating: 4.1 (273 reviews)
Author: Timothy Snyder

Timothy Snyder

Russia, Europe, America

4.1 (273 ratings)

20 mins

Brief summary

The Road to Unfreedom by Timothy Snyder investigates how Russia's political landscape shaped the rise of authoritarianism in the West. Snyder argues that Putin's regime seeks to undermine democracy by weaponizing information and destabilizing institutions.

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Democracy Political Philosophy

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The Road to Unfreedom
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Key idea 1 of 6

What’s in it for me? Discover how Vladimir Putin is trying to bring about a new, dystopian world order.

According to the author and academic, Timothy Snyder, we live in an age of economic and political uncertainty. The last few years have seen the likes of Brexit and Donald Trump’s election as US president come to pass, while extreme political groups on the right seem to gain more clout every day.

It used to be taken for granted that the future would necessarily be a slowly progressing continuation of the present; an assumption known as the politics of inevitability.

But in today’s uncertain times, a move to the politics of eternity lies on the horizon. As Snyder argues, instead of looking forward to the brighter tomorrow guaranteed by political progress, the politics of eternity fix us into a state of mind in which we believe that we are perpetually threatened by enemies both real and imagined. It’s a fearful and paranoid state, where we expect little else from our government than to protects us from our enemies.

In these blinks, we’ll shed light on Snyder’s view that the politics of eternity has been driven in one country – Russia – and by one man – Vladimir Putin. Read on to learn how.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

how the European Union is being destroyed from within with help from Russia;
why Putin saw himself as the true victim in the Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 disaster; and
how Russia was integral to Donald Trump’s election as president of the United States.

The key to the shift toward the politics of eternity in Russia was the philosophy of Ivan Ilyin.

On March 26, 2000, the Russian Federation held presidential elections. The winner, Vladimir Putin, would go on to rule – and transform – the world’s largest country, and continues to do so to this day.

But those who elected Putin didn’t realize how large the ideas of Russian philosopher Ivan Ilyin loomed in the new administration’s political ideology. Although Ilyin had been dead since 1954, Putin was keen on reviving his ideas and putting them front and center in his political program.

Ilyin lived through the 1917 Russian Revolution, which ushered in the Soviet Union and one-party communist rule. But he was no communist – he was a Christian fascist, inspired by Adolf Hitler and Italian fascist Benito Mussolini rather than Lenin or Stalin.

Exiled from the Soviet Union in 1922, he began conceptualizing his ideal version of a right-wing, Christian dystopia in Russia, which he thought would follow the inevitable collapse of communism.

Ilyin’s ideal Russia would resemble the fascist states of the 1920s and 1930s. The anxieties of a population demoralized by harsh socioeconomic conditions would be channeled into glorifying a redeeming, savior-like leader who promised to defend the nation from external threats – whether or not those threats really existed. Violence would be glorified over reason, and propaganda would triumph over rational discourse.

But Ilyin went a step further than the one-party fascist states in Europe at the time; he thought that even one real political party was too many. A multi-party system might be useful in order to justify the ritual of holding elections, but all real power should be invested in a man, not a party, and this man would be in charge of the government, judiciary and armed forces.

Ilyin’s writings on his ideal Russian fascism had been banned and dormant for decades. But with the liberalization of Russian media in the 1990s, his books again began to circulate.

And after Putin’s election in 2000, this accelerated. Ilyin’s books were recommended to school pupils, and Russian civil servants were given copies of his complete writings. Putin even arranged the transport of his body from Switzerland for reburial in Moscow in 2005.

For Putin, implementing Ilyin’s vision of a right-wing dictatorship in Russia has proven successful. But to discover how we got there, we must go back to the tragic events of September 1999, three months before Putin would be named acting president of Russia upon the resignation of Boris Yeltsin.

Putin increasingly entrenched Ilyin’s conception of a dystopian Russia throughout his first three terms in power.

In September 1999, a series of bombs went off all over Russia, culminating in 293 deaths.

At the time, Putin had been Prime Minister of Russia for only a month, but his response was swift. He ordered troops to attack those he deemed responsible: terrorists from Chechnya, a region in the south of Russia where protracted civil war and insurgency had been raging for a decade.

Putin’s assault on the European Union began in 2013.

After World War II, a defeated Germany and a declining France decided to integrate themselves to ensure their own survival in a post-war world.

The eventual result was the European Union, which today has 28 member states and together forms the world’s second-largest economy, after the United States.

The 2013-14 Ukrainian protests were a result of Russia’s Eurasian imperialism.

Amid Russia’s efforts to get the EU to destroy itself from within, a problematic scenario was developing closer to home.

In 2013, Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych was close to signing an Association Agreement with the EU, making Ukraine’s ascension to EU member status much more likely.

Russia used propaganda both domestically and internationally to promote the politics of eternity.

Russia’s next step in destabilizing Ukraine was military intervention on behalf of pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine’s southeast, which Putin justified with propaganda that portrayed ethnic Russians in the region as victims of Ukrainian oppression, and Russia as their liberators.

Even more unbelievable assertions of victimhood occurred after July 17, 2014, when Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down by an anti-aircraft missile, killing all 298 people on board. All evidence clearly indicated that Russia was responsible.

The road to Donald Trump’s presidency was paved with Russian meddling.

After Putin’s successful intervention in Brexit and half-victory in Ukraine, his attention turned toward the ultimate prize – the downfall of the United States.

Russian hackers began breaching high-level American networks in 2015, including the White House and State Department. But it wasn’t until 2016 that Putin would use cyberwarfare with the explicit goal of remaking America in Russia’s image.

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What is The Road to Unfreedom about?

The Road to Unfreedom (2018) chronicles the extraordinary political age we are now living in. Russian expansionism, led by Vladimir Putin, threatens to encroach on the freedoms that people in Europe and America enjoy. After having successfully helping to bring about Brexit, the Kremlin set its gaze on the United States and, in doing so, played a central role in ushering in the Donald Trump presidency. And with Europe in the midst of a right-wing ascendancy, Russia is wielding a greater influence than ever before.

The Road to Unfreedom Review

The Road to Unfreedom (2018) by Timothy Snyder examines the rise of authoritarianism and the erosion of democracy, offering valuable insights into the current political landscape. Here's why this book is worth reading:

Through meticulous research and analysis, it sheds light on the tactics used by authoritarian leaders to manipulate public opinion and undermine democratic principles.
By connecting historical events to contemporary politics, the book provides a comprehensive understanding of the dangers posed by populist movements and their impact on society.
Its thought-provoking exploration of the intersection of politics and ideology keeps readers engaged, ensuring that the book is far from boring.

Best quote from The Road to Unfreedom

Ilyin and Putin rose together, the philosopher and the politician of fiction.

—Timothy Snyder

Who should read The Road to Unfreedom?

Anyone hoping to understand why right-wing populism is on the rise
Americans looking to find out how Russia influenced the 2016 election
Students of political science, international relations or history

About the Author

Timothy Snyder is an American author and the Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University. In addition to being a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, he has authored numerous critically-acclaimed historical works such as Bloodlands and On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century.

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