krishnendu 's review for:

On Tyranny Graphic Edition: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Nora Krug, Timothy Snyder

3.0

medium-paced

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This felt like a dull first-semester crash course. The exclusive focus on European examples of authoritarianism inadvertently paints America as more resistant to tyranny than it really is - especially when there exist examples more relevant than the reiterated Nazi ones throughout. Some of the “lessons” come off as reductive, like his outright disdain for internet and social media (coming from a 20th-century historian), this seems not just dated but counterproductive. There’s also an uneasy lack of nuance when drawing historical parallels, like framing the Czech shopkeeper's potential proletarian solidarity as mere totalitarian compliance. Written during Trump’s first term and criticised as "alarmist", it now feels like an ad rem guide