Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World

by Anne Applebaum Narrated by Anne Applebaum

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Autocracy has never been more relevant than it is today. This exhaustive investigation into why autacracies come to be, as well as what democracy can do to combat it, is necessary reading for anyone interested in the political state of the world.

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.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Anne Applebaum’s Autocracy, Inc. provides a trenchant account that indicates that Trump, for all his bluster about America First, is part of a global phenomenon—namely, the rise of an international kleptocracy that often works in tandem.”—Washington Monthly

“Anne Applebaum’s far-sighted book reveals an international network of autocrats who seek to subvert democracy…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

“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

Kirkus Reviews

2024-05-10
The noted journalist and student of tyranny turns her attention to Trump, Putin, and numerous other modern authoritarians.

“A world in which autocracies work together to stay in power, work together to promote their system, and work together to damage democracies is not some distant dystopia,” writes Applebaum. “That world is the one we are living in right now.” In the meantime, she notes, democracies, as if paralyzed, accommodate both the lawlessness of the autocrats and the violence they incite: Witness, for instance, the growing myth that Jan. 6, 2021, was acceptable political expression. Whereas autocrats once worked singly, today they’re shored up by an international kleptocracy and shared understandings—don’t criticize my oppressiveness, and I won’t criticize yours—that make allies of disparate rulers from Washington to Budapest to Harare. These rulers are shameless, Applebaum notes. They no longer bother to disguise their acts of aggression and brutality, as with Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, a declaration that old rules no longer applied. Autocrats differ in style, but they share a hatred for an independent judiciary, representative government, and the free press—i.e., all the hallmarks of democracy. Against this, Applebaum suggests, it behooves the democratic nations of the world to band together in mutual support precisely because “their democracies are not safe.” One means of support would be to reject news that comes from the likes of Russia Today and Xinhua, which inform so much antidemocratic dissension in the “free world,” and instead insist on reliable information. Exactly how this is to be achieved isn’t quite clear, but it’s a worthy idea, as is the suggestion that increased policing of kleptocratic antics and their enablers—not least “the bankers in Sioux Falls happy to accept mystery deposits from mystery clients”—is needed.

Central to any discussion of modern totalitarianism.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940191621432
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	07/23/2024
Edition description:	Unabridged

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