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books_ergo_sum 's review for:
On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
by Timothy Snyder
reflective
This book doesn’t fight tyranny—it reifies tyranny. Because:
1️⃣ it villainized tackling wealth inequality
2️⃣ it framed tyranny as coming from ‘over there’
1️⃣ 20 chapters, 20 lessons on tyranny. But he left out:
👉 Beware of (wealth) inequality
This book is my problem with liberals in a nutshell: they hate tyranny—but not as much as they hate social democracy 😑
But I’m sorry libs, you can’t Protect Liberal Institutions your way out of tyranny without tackling wealth inequality. Wealth inequality = power inequality = tyranny 🤷🏻♀️
Snyder not including “beware of wealth inequality” was POINTED. The consensus in his field is that inequality is the essence of tyranny—he even brings up Aristotle’s version of this argument in the first paragraph of the book! Only to discard it.
And when he talked about the USSR, he was more critical of its socialist origins than its tyrannical leaders. Which is… counterproductive 🫠
✨ random list intermission✨
▪️ anyone who tells me to act like Winston Churchill (the colonial tyrant who intentionally killed millions in the Bengal Famine) to fight tyranny is a 🤡
▪️ anyone who tells me to read JK Rowling to fight tyranny is a 🤡
▪️ anyone who ignores the imperial boomerang of tyranny and suggests you avoid it by getting a passport and moving? A 🤡 (also the American Caucasity of that suggestion—incredible). He’s since moved to Canada.
2️⃣ You know what’s weird? How much this book focused on Nazi Germany and the USSR, rather than 21st century America. The Hannah Arendt inspo was clear. But he got that inspo completely wrong: Arendt analyzed those regimes as an immanent critique. She lived there. During that time.
In lieu of immanent critique, Snyder had a SUPER weak premise doing a TON of work—
▪️ Nazi Germany and the USSR were related to 21st America via Trump because of: Trump’s allusions to fascism and his personal relationship with Putin.
But c’mon America, the call is coming from inside the house! It’s your surveillance state, the Washington Consensus, American imperialism, racism, Christian nationalism, your prison system…
American tyranny doesn’t come from ‘over there’. And yet, there was only *one line* (in the epilogue) alluding to the kind of tyranny brewing within the US: the debate-stifling teleology of saying “there is no alternative” (a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it reference to Margret Thatcher—who also isn’t American but sure).
Not. Good. Enough.
Why is this book so popular??! I don’t understand!!
1️⃣ it villainized tackling wealth inequality
2️⃣ it framed tyranny as coming from ‘over there’
1️⃣ 20 chapters, 20 lessons on tyranny. But he left out:
👉 Beware of (wealth) inequality
This book is my problem with liberals in a nutshell: they hate tyranny—but not as much as they hate social democracy 😑
But I’m sorry libs, you can’t Protect Liberal Institutions your way out of tyranny without tackling wealth inequality. Wealth inequality = power inequality = tyranny 🤷🏻♀️
Snyder not including “beware of wealth inequality” was POINTED. The consensus in his field is that inequality is the essence of tyranny—he even brings up Aristotle’s version of this argument in the first paragraph of the book! Only to discard it.
And when he talked about the USSR, he was more critical of its socialist origins than its tyrannical leaders. Which is… counterproductive 🫠
✨ random list intermission✨
▪️ anyone who tells me to act like Winston Churchill (the colonial tyrant who intentionally killed millions in the Bengal Famine) to fight tyranny is a 🤡
▪️ anyone who tells me to read JK Rowling to fight tyranny is a 🤡
▪️ anyone who ignores the imperial boomerang of tyranny and suggests you avoid it by getting a passport and moving? A 🤡 (also the American Caucasity of that suggestion—incredible). He’s since moved to Canada.
2️⃣ You know what’s weird? How much this book focused on Nazi Germany and the USSR, rather than 21st century America. The Hannah Arendt inspo was clear. But he got that inspo completely wrong: Arendt analyzed those regimes as an immanent critique. She lived there. During that time.
In lieu of immanent critique, Snyder had a SUPER weak premise doing a TON of work—
▪️ Nazi Germany and the USSR were related to 21st America via Trump because of: Trump’s allusions to fascism and his personal relationship with Putin.
But c’mon America, the call is coming from inside the house! It’s your surveillance state, the Washington Consensus, American imperialism, racism, Christian nationalism, your prison system…
American tyranny doesn’t come from ‘over there’. And yet, there was only *one line* (in the epilogue) alluding to the kind of tyranny brewing within the US: the debate-stifling teleology of saying “there is no alternative” (a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it reference to Margret Thatcher—who also isn’t American but sure).
Not. Good. Enough.
Why is this book so popular??! I don’t understand!!