6 books about truth and freedom of speech

Truth_and_Power_list.jpg

Reading lists

dystopias20podcast20inline.jpg

Features

Dystopias: Trump’s First 100 Days

Lessons from Russia's War on Ukraine

On Tyranny and On Ukraine

Brought to you by Penguin. 
 
The #1 New York Times bestseller, now in an expanded audiobook edition that includes detailed historical context for the democracy-threatening Ukrainian conflict and a call to action for modern times. 
 
 This edition includes the bestselling original On Tyranny, read by the author. 
 
 In this exclusive audiobook edition, which includes eight hours of new content, Timothy Snyder combines the original On Tyranny (2017) - twenty lessons on how history can instruct our response to the rise of tyranny around the world today - with twenty new lessons that answer the questions everyone is asking about Russia's war on Ukraine. With forays into history, he clarifies the causes of the Russian invasion and the meaning of Ukrainian resistance, and explains the war's connections to threats to democracy around the world. Linking past and present, and speaking only from notes, Snyder delivers an important call to arms and roadmap for resistance, providing invaluable ideas for how we can preserve our freedoms in the uncertain years to come. This is the long view we all need, given to us right now by a leading expert. 
 
 "Timothy Snyder reasons with unparalleled clarity, throwing the past and future into sharp relief. He has written the rare kind of book that can be read in one sitting but will keep you coming back to help regain your bearings" Masha Gessen, about On Tyranny 
 
© Timothy Snyder 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

The #1 New York Times bestseller, now in an expanded audiobook edition that includes detailed historical context for the democracy-threatening Ukrainian conflict and a call to action for modern times. 
 
 This edition includes the bestselling original On Tyranny, read by the author. 
 
 In this exclusive audiobook edition, which includes eight hours of new content, Timothy Snyder combines the original On Tyranny (2017) - twenty lessons on how history can instruct our response to the rise of tyranny around the world today - with twenty new lessons that answer the questions everyone is asking about Russia's war on Ukraine. With forays into history, he clarifies the causes of the Russian invasion and the meaning of Ukrainian resistance, and explains the war's connections to threats to democracy around the world. Linking past and present, and speaking only from notes, Snyder delivers an important call to arms and roadmap for resistance, providing invaluable ideas for how we can preserve our freedoms in the uncertain years to come. This is the long view we all need, given to us right now by a leading expert. 
 
 "Timothy Snyder reasons with unparalleled clarity, throwing the past and future into sharp relief. He has written the rare kind of book that can be read in one sitting but will keep you coming back to help regain your bearings" Masha Gessen, about On Tyranny

Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

On Tyranny Graphic Edition

A captivating graphic edition of Timothy Snyder's bestselling book of lessons for surviving and resisting the arc toward authoritarianism. 
 
 Timothy Snyder's On Tyranny is one of the essential books of recent years, using the darkest moments in twentieth-century history to teach twenty lessons on resisting modern-day authoritarianism. These include a warning to be aware of how symbols used today could affect tomorrow, an urgent reminder to research everything for yourself and to the fullest extent, and an encouragement to use personalised and individualised speech rather than clichéd phrases when arguing a point 
 
 In this graphic edition, Nora Krug draws from her highly inventive style in Heimat - at once a graphic memoir, collage-style scrapbook, historical narrative and trove of memories - to breathe new life, colour and power into Snyder's modern classic, turning a quick-read pocket guide of lessons into a visually striking rumination and call for action. 
 
 'On Tyranny is a must read, a clear-eyed guidebook' Ken Burns 
 
 History does not repeat, but it does instruct. In a time of great uncertainty and instability, this edition of On Tyranny emphasises the importance of being active, conscious, and deliberate participants in resistance.

Vastly important, deeply affecting, powerful, magnificent

Philippe Sands, author of East West Street and The Ratline

A more concise, profound, or essential book on the subject does not exist

J.J. Abrams, filmmaker, Star Trek and Star Wars: The Force Awakens

On Tyranny is a must read, a clear-eyed guidebook... a manual for how to protect and preserve Democracy

Nora Krug has visualized and rendered some of the most valuable lessons of the 20th century

Her colorful images here - some drawn and some collaged, including many historical photos and artifacts - add a new layer of complexity, and make the search for understanding in images of the past part of the story

One of the most important books of our time... This book should be read and experienced by everyone, its lessons carved into our hearts

Nate Powell, graphic novelist, March and Save It for Later

Krug's illustrated edition of On Tyranny is more than an instant classic. It is an act of resistance - and a gift of love

Joshua Oppenheimer, filmmaker, The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence

A chilling description of how authoritarian mindsets work

Timothy Snyder (Author) 
 Timothy Snyder is Levin Professor of History at Yale University and the author of fifteen critically acclaimed books including The Road to Unfreedom and most recently On Tyranny which was an international bestseller. 
 
His previous books include Black Earth, which was longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and won the annual prize of the Dutch Auschwitz Committee; and Bloodlands, which won the Hannah Arendt Prize, the Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding, the Ralph Waldo Emerson Award in the Humanities and the literature award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. 
 
He lives in New Haven, Connecticut. 
 
Nora Krug (Illustrator) 
 Nora Krug is a German-American author, illustrator and associate professor in the Illustration Program at the Parsons School of Design in New York City. Her drawings and visual narratives have appeared in publications including The New York Times, the Guardian and le Monde Diplomatique, and in a number of anthologies. A recipient of numerous prestigious fellowships, her books are included in the Library of Congress and the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia University. Her illustrations have been recognized with three gold medals from the Society of Illustrators and a Silver Cube from the New York Art Directors Club. Krug's work has been exhibited internationally, and her animations shown at the Sundance Film Festival.

A captivating graphic edition of Timothy Snyder's bestselling book of lessons for surviving and resisting the arc toward authoritarianism. 
 
 Timothy Snyder's On Tyranny is one of the essential books of recent years, using the darkest moments in twentieth-century history to teach twenty lessons on resisting modern-day authoritarianism. These include a warning to be aware of how symbols used today could affect tomorrow, an urgent reminder to research everything for yourself and to the fullest extent, and an encouragement to use personalised and individualised speech rather than clichéd phrases when arguing a point 
 
 In this graphic edition, Nora Krug draws from her highly inventive style in Heimat - at once a graphic memoir, collage-style scrapbook, historical narrative and trove of memories - to breathe new life, colour and power into Snyder's modern classic, turning a quick-read pocket guide of lessons into a visually striking rumination and call for action. 
 
History does not repeat, but it does instruct. In a time of great uncertainty and instability, this edition of On Tyranny emphasises the importance of being active, conscious, and deliberate participants in resistance.

Lessons in Liberty and Solidarity

Our Malady

In a time of pandemic and tyranny Our Malady is an urgent diagnosis of the vital link between health and freedom

A virus is not human, but the reaction to it is a measure of humanity. 
 
America has not measured up well. Tens of thousands are dead for no reason. America is supposed to be about freedom, yet illness and fear make its citizens less free. After all, freedom is meaningless if we are too ill to think about our right to happiness or too weak to pursue it. So, if a government is making its people unhealthy it is also making them unfree. 
 
On December 29, 2019, Timothy Snyder fell gravely ill. As he clung to life he found himself reflecting on the fragility of health, not recognized in America as a human right, but without which all rights and freedoms have no meaning. And that was before the pandemic. We have since watched understaffed and undersupplied hospitals buckling under waves of coronavirus patients. The federal government made matters worse through wilful ignorance, misinformation, and profiteering. 
 
This passionate intervention outlines the lessons we must all learn, wherever we are, and finds glimmers of hope in dark times. Only by enshrining healthcare as a human right, elevating the authority of doctors and truth, and planning for our children's future, can everyone be properly free. 
 
Freedom belongs to individuals. But to be free we need our health, and for our health we need one another.

A virus is not human, but the reaction to it is a measure of humanity. 
 
America has not measured up well. Tens of thousands are dead for no reason. America is supposed to be about freedom, yet illness and fear make its citizens less free. After all, freedom is meaningless if we are too ill to think about our right to happiness or too weak to pursue it. So, if a government is making its people unhealthy it is also making them unfree. 
 
 On December 29, 2019, Timothy Snyder fell gravely ill. As he clung to life he found himself reflecting on the fragility of health, not recognized in America as a human right, but without which all rights and freedoms have no meaning. And that was before the pandemic. We have since watched understaffed and undersupplied hospitals buckling under waves of coronavirus patients. The federal American government made matters worse through wilful ignorance, misinformation, and profiteering. 
 
This passionate intervention outlines the lessons we must all learn, wherever we are, and finds glimmers of hope in dark times. Only by enshrining healthcare as a human right, elevating the authority of doctors and truth, and planning for our children's future, can everyone be properly free. 
 
Freedom belongs to individuals. But to be free we need our health, and for our health we need one another.

Russia, Europe, America

The Road to Unfreedom

A landmark work of contemporary history and a wake-up call that aims to restore our understanding of the basis of our way of life, from the author of international bestseller On Tyranny.

From the author of international bestseller On Tyranny, this prescient analysis of Russia's ongoing interference in the West is now more relevant than ever. 
 
 'One of the best...brisk, conceptually convincing account of democracy's retreat in the early years of 21st century' Guardian 
 
 The past is another country, the old saying goes. The same might be said of the future. But which country? For Europeans and Americans today, the answer is Russia. 
 
 In this visionary work of contemporary history, Timothy Snyder shows how Russia works within the West to destroy the West; by supporting the far right in Europe, invading Ukraine in 2014, and waging a cyberwar during the 2016 presidential campaign and the EU referendum. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the creation of Donald Trump, an American failure deployed as a Russian weapon. But this threat presents an opportunity to better understand the pillars of our freedoms and face the choices that will determine the future: equality or oligarchy, individualism or totalitarianism, truth or lies. 
 
 'A brilliant and disturbing analysis, which should be read by anyone wishing to understand the political crisis currently engulfing the world' Yuval Noah Harari, bestselling author of Sapiens

A brilliant and disturbing analysis, which should be read by anyone wishing to understand the political crisis currently engulfing the world

YUVAL NOAH HARARI, author of SAPIENS and HOMO DEUS

This story of how Russia dismantled democracy, and the man who set its template for fake news, is chilling and persuasive ... unignorable... a disturbing and persuasive insight... Snyder's forensic examination of, for example the news cycle that followed the shooting down of flight MH17 makes essential reading ... Meticulously researched and footnoted.

One of the best…brisk, conceptually convincing account of democracy’s retreat in the early years of 21st century

Snyder’s central thesis is a strong one… Vividly and insightfully told.

A rollercoaster world calls for a news editor’s skills in processing facts and a philosopher’s ability to dissect ideologies. He has both.

The Road to Unfreedom is a sprawling epic that veers from Dark Ages Kiev to modern day Washington and back again.

Snyder’s informative timeline of events on the ground in Ukraine is vivid, and offers a much greater understanding of how this conflict emerged than we got in most English-language news coverage

Timothy Snyder… offers unexpected insights into the seemingly familiar events of the past decade

BBC History Magazine, **Books of the Year**

Timothy Snyder is one of the world’s top historians… [The Road to Unfreedom is a] bracing analysis

If there’s one book to help explain the bloody mess we find ourselves in…this is it… [Snyder] is a refreshing voice… [and] every chapter is rich with apercu… Every sentence smacks of careful thought, engaged concern, and urgency

A wake-up call that aims to restore our understanding of the basis of our way of life, from the author of international bestseller On Tyranny. 
 
‘One of the best…brisk, conceptually convincing account of democracy’s retreat in the early years of 21st century’ Guardian 
 
 The past is another country, the old saying goes. The same might be said of the future. But which country? For Europeans and Americans today, the answer is Russia. 
 
 In this visionary work of contemporary history, Timothy Snyder shows how Russia works within the West to destroy the West; by supporting the far right in Europe, invading Ukraine in 2014, and waging a cyberwar during the 2016 presidential campaign and the EU referendum. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the creation of Donald Trump, an American failure deployed as a Russian weapon. But this threat presents an opportunity to better understand the pillars of our freedoms and face the choices that will determine the future: equality or oligarchy, individualism or totalitarianism, truth or lies. 
 
‘A brilliant and disturbing analysis, which should be read by anyone wishing to understand the political crisis currently engulfing the world’ Yuval Noah Harari, bestselling author of Sapiens

On Tyranny

A controversial, timely intervention in world affairs from one of the most acclaimed historians of the twentieth century

**NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER** 
 
THE BOOK TO HELP YOU UNDERSTAND WHY DEMOCRACY IS FAILING IN 2025 
 
‘The most coherent manifesto on confronting Trump’ New Statesman 
 
In the twentieth century, European democracies collapsed into fascism, Nazism and communism. These were movements in which a leader or a party claimed to give voice to the people, promised to protect them from global existential threats, and rejected reason in favour of myth. 
European history shows us that societies can break, democracies can fall, ethics can collapse, and ordinary people can find themselves in unimaginable circumstances. 
 
Today, we are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to totalitarianism in the twentieth century. But when the political order seems imperilled, our advantage is that we can learn from their experience to resist the advance of tyranny. 
 
'These 128 pages are a brief primer in every important thing we might have learned from the history of the last century, and all that we appear to have forgotten' Observer 
 
‘Clarifying and unnerving… a memorable work that is grounded in history yet imbued with the fierce urgency of what now.’ Washington Post 
 
'Please read this book. So smart, so timely.' George Saunders

The most coherent manifesto on confronting Trump… powerful.

Snyder’s beautifully weighted book is the perfect clear-eyed antidote to [Trump's] deliberate philistinism … Always measured in their observation, these 128 pages are a brief primer in every important thing we might have learned from the history of the last century, and all that we appear to have forgotten … You will read no more relevant field guide to that wisdom than this book.

On Tyranny is a slim book that fits alongside your pocket constitution and feels only slightly less vital... Clarifying and unnerving… a memorable work that is grounded in history yet imbued with the fierce urgency of what now.

Following paths trodden by Hannah Arendt, Czeslaw Milosz and Václav Havel, Snyder has written a manifesto for surviving the political rampages of our time with our rights and freedoms intact… Snyder’s book is addressed to the American reader, but its message is broader. Read in Budapest or Warsaw, it will have an especial resonance … Slim and accessible, On Tyranny is a book to read quickly, ponder slowly and pass on

Urgent, indignant, winningly ragged in execution, On Tyranny is in the best tradition of polemical pamphlets. Timely agitprop, it offers some relief from Trump anxiety disorder.

A chilling description of how authoritarian mindsets work

Steeped in the history of interwar Germany, Snyder writes with bracing immediacy about how to prevent, or at least forestall, the repression of lives and minds.

We are rapidly ripening for fascism. This American writer leaves us with no illusions about ourselves

Svetlana Alexievich, winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize for Literature

On Tyranny will help you keep going for the next four years, or however long it takes.

He is undoubtedly a scholar of great distinction and authority… If more people follow Snyder’s injunctions to read newspapers, avoid falling for contrived online “scandals”, make friends across national boundaries and remember professional ethics then the world will indeed be a better place.

In an erudite yet accessibly manner, with brevity and precision, Snyder draws on his prodigious knowledge of 20th century despotism to present 20 sobering lessons for dealing with the Trump phenomenon

On Tyranny is [a] response to the rise of Donald Trump, although it is not, strictly speaking, about Trump, who is never mentioned by name. It is, rather, a primer in how to think historically

A slim volume more like a guide than a tome of historical scholarship, though Snyder drew on 25 years of research and writing

Please read this book. So smart, so timely

**NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER** 
 
‘A sort of survival book, a sort of symptom-diagnosis manual in terms of losing your democracy and what tyranny and authoritarianism look like up close’ Rachel Maddow 
 
'These 128 pages are a brief primer in every important thing we might have learned from the history of the last century, and all that we appear to have forgotten' Observer 
 
History does not repeat, but it does instruct. 
 
In the twentieth century, European democracies collapsed into fascism, Nazism and communism. These were movements in which a leader or a party claimed to give voice to the people, promised to protect them from global existential threats, and rejected reason in favour of myth. European history shows us that societies can break, democracies can fall, ethics can collapse, and ordinary people can find themselves in unimaginable circumstances. 
 
History can familiarise, and it can warn. Today, we are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to totalitarianism in the twentieth century. But when the political order seems imperilled, our advantage is that we can learn from their experience to resist the advance of tyranny. 
 
Now is a good time to do so.

The Holocaust as History and Warning

Black Earth

A radical reframing of the Holocaust that challenges prevailing myths and draws disturbing parallels with the present

Timothy Snyder's bold new approach to the Holocaust links Hitler's racial worldview to the destruction of states and the quest for land and food. This insight leads to thought-provoking and disturbing conclusions for today's world. Black Earth uses the recent past's terrible inhumanity to underline an urgent need to rethink our own future

A wholly readable and utterly persuasive attempt to get us to look at the Holocaust in a different light. I read it twice, aghast but gripped by the moral abyss into which I was plunged on each page

Black Earth is provocative, challenging, and an important addition to our understanding of the Holocaust. As he did in Bloodlands, Timothy Snyder makes us rethink those things we were sure we already knew

Part history, part political theory, Black Earth is a learned and challenging reinterpretation

In this unusual and innovative book, Timothy Snyder takes a fresh look at the intellectual origins of the Holocaust, placing Hitler's genocide firmly in the politics and diplomacy of 1930s Europe. Black Earth is required reading for anyone who cares about this difficult period of history

Timothy Snyder’s Black Earth is not only a powerful exposure of the horrors of the Holocaust but also a compelling dissection of the Holocaust’s continuing threat

Timothy Snyder is now our most distinguished historian of evil. Black Earth casts new light on old darkness. It demonstrates once and for all that the destruction of the Jews was premised on the destruction of states and the institutions of politics.I know of no other historical work on the Holocaust that is so deeply alarmed by its repercussions for the human future. This is a haunted and haunting book—erudite, provocative, and unforgettable

Timothy Snyder argues, eloquently and convincingly, that the world is still susceptible to the inhuman impulses that brought about the Final Solution. This book should be read as admonition by presidents, prime ministers, and in particular by anyone who believes that the past is somehow behind us

Always readable, highly sophisticated, and strikingly original

an engrossing and often thought-provoking analysis of Hitler’s antisemitic ideology and an intelligently argued country-by-country survey of its implementation between 1939 and 1945

a wholly readable and utterly persuasive attempt to get us to look at the Holocaust in a different light

this is a deeply insightful and original treatment and, as the Holocaust drifts slowly but surely from living memory and into history, a warning against future complacency

Snyder excels in repositioning the Holocaust in a global context

Timothy Synder reorientates our understanding of the ideological structures and political circumstances that made the Nazis’ genocidal programme possible 
·

To his recalibration of the conventional topography and chronology of the Holocaust, Snyder adds a novel interpretation of Hitler’s worldview and of the place of Jews in it

Snyder delivers what is surely the best and most unsparing analysis of eastern European collaborationism now available.

As our world fragments and dissolves into chaos, Snyder offers a chilling lesson about how easy it is for people to slip into evil and bloodlust.

a book of the greatest importance… written with searing intellectual honesty.

Snyder's extraordinary book may be about events more than seventy years ago, but its lessons about human nature are as relevant now as then

Disturbing but utterly compelling... The how’s and whys of what happened have never been better explained.

Highly praised, and indeed it is a worthy contribution to the subject.

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2015 SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE 
 
We have come to see the Holocaust as a factory of death, organised by bureaucrats. Yet by the time the gas chambers became operation more than a million European Jews were already dead: shot at close range over pits and ravines. They had been murdered in the lawless killing zones created by the German colonial war in the East, many on the fertile black earth that the Nazis believed would feed the German people. 
 
It comforts us to believe that the Holocaust was a unique event. But as Timothy Snyder shows, we have missed basic lessons of the history of the Holocaust, and some of our beliefs are frighteningly close to the ecological panic that Hitler expressed in the 1920s. As ideological and environmental challenges to the world order mount, our societies might be more vulnerable than we would like to think. 
 
Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands was an acclaimed exploration of what happened in eastern Europe between 1933 and 1945, when Nazi and Soviet policy brought death to some 14 million people. Black Earth is a deep exploration of the ideas and politics that enabled the worst of these policies, the Nazi extermination of the Jews. Its pioneering treatment of this unprecedented crime makes the Holocaust intelligible, and thus all the more terrifying.

Timothy Snyder

On Freedom is … penetrating in its analysis of our current crises…and clear in its prescriptions for change … This is a rigorous and visionary argument … to his prescriptions for freedom you might add three more: buy or borrow this book, read it, take it to heart

Written with such panache that one cannot fail to be impressed by the author’s eloquence and learning … Profoundly humane

We hear of freedom, but do we grasp it? In these hard times for liberty, On Freedom offers a deep inquiry arising from a diversity of perspectives. It makes the case that freedom, once explored and understood, is the way forward to good government. We are all fortunate that Professor Snyder has shown us the way

Invaluable ... intellectually rich, yet personal ... passionate

Timothy Snyder is one of our most original and perceptive thinkers, on the history of Europe, on American politics, and now, on freedom. Everyone who cares about freedom - what it means and what it takes to preserve it - should read this book

There's nothing else like On Freedom. This time the acclaimed historian draws not just from global history but his own. The result is a wonderfully provocative and profoundly persuasive book. Snyder leads us away from our misconception that freedom is just the removal of what stands in our way and toward a project of liberty that, through active engagement and commitment to the common good, we can achieve together

A must-read. Timothy Snyder is one of the leading minds of our times. This new book draws from his work as an historian of central Europe, his travelling and moving encounters in Ukraine at war, and his thinking on how democracy, pluralism and wealth inequality will look like in 2076 United States and the world at large

Much like life itself, freedom needs to defined and redefined ... On Freedom offers fresh insight into essential aspects of human existence - the values and obligations inherent in every individual's life

A great and daring book … magnificent. Above all, Snyder’s insightful and powerful work reminds us that freedom is about humanity, and that creating a better world is up to us

Passionate, intimate, compelling - a clarion call for principle and commitment in a time of tumult and challenge

Thanks to Snyder, the maps are drawn, and the direction is clear. We stand against tyranny, but we march for freedom. The work is ours to undertake for the sake of all who live today and all who follow

The excellence of On Freedom will come as no surprise to those who have already read Snyder's books on the Ukraine and on those countries whose geography and history nailed them down in the past between Hitler and Stalin. He writes comprehensively and with great knowledge about the threats which liberal democracies everywhere face today from authoritarian states and from extremist populists. It deserves to be widely read by all who value democracy and the rule of law

Timothy Snyder puts to work his talent as a historian, thinker and activist to reexamine the meaning of one of the key human values which has been under attack on a scale unseen since the 1930s. Starting his journey in Ukraine, continuing it into the rest of Europe and the United States, he argues that there is no need to trade freedom for security, and to be free one should not only deny but also affirm. A powerful call for action when it is needed the most

A vital book at a time when America and so much of the 'free world' has lost its way. Just when the concept of 'freedom' seemed to have been killed off by forces who abuse it as the 'freedom' to hurt others, Snyder intervenes and brings you into a process akin to intellectual open heart surgery to make freedom beat better than it ever has

Years ago, inside a prison in Port-o-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, a man asked if I’d ever felt free while incarcerated. Snyder’s On Freedom reminds me that sometimes, in those cells, I was free as I'll ever be, nurturing imaginative tomorrows, knowing the art of dreaming made those dreams more real than the handcuffs that then bound my wrists. What more can any of us want than a reminder that our freedom, in being the most powerful future tense we have, gives more deliberate meaning to our todays

Fascinating. Part deeply personal memoir, part political manifesto, part philosophical poem, On Freedom captures the voice of one of today's most important Western public intellectuals

PRAISE FOR TIMOTHY SNYDER 
 
A scholar of great distinction and authority

A Yale university historian whose work deserves to be read and reread

In some respects Snyder has written a kind of philosophical novel about freedom… Freedom boomerangs between continents, histories and traditions in this book, which is partly what makes it exhilarating… [On Freedom] is a pitch at virtue, and for that his book is to be welcomed

The pace is breathtaking, the writing fluid and the knowledge deep as he sweeps through past and present while celebrated names fly off the pages… On Freedom is fascinating… It is rooted in Snyder’s deep insights into eastern Europe and Laudable support for Ukraine’s existential fight

Drawing on politics, philosophy, conversation and his own experiences, Snyder puts forward a powerful and interesting manifesto

A brilliant exploration of freedom – what it is, how it’s been misunderstood, and why it’s our only chance for survival – by the acclaimed, bestselling author of On Tyranny. 
 
Freedom is the great Western commitment, but we have lost sight of what it means – and this is leading us into crisis. Too many of us look at freedom as the absence of state power: we think we’re free if we can do and say as we please, and protect ourselves from government interference. But true freedom isn’t so much freedom from, as freedom to – the freedom to thrive, to take risks for futures we choose by working together. Freedom is the value that makes all other values possible. 
 
Drawing on the work of philosophers and political dissidents, conversations with contemporary thinkers and his own experiences, Snyder identifies the practices and attitudes – the habits of mind – that will allow us to design a government in which we and future generations can flourish. We come to appreciate the importance of traditions but also the role of institutions. Intimate yet ambitious, this book helps forge a new consensus rooted in a politics of abundance, generosity and grace. 
 
Snyder’s book On Tyranny has inspired millions around the world to fight for freedom; On Freedom helps us see exactly what we’re fighting for. It is a thrilling intellectual journey and a tour de force of political philosophy.

Timothy Snyder

Praise for On Freedom

On Freedom is … penetrating in its analysis of our current crises…and clear in its prescriptions for change … This is a rigorous and visionary argument … to his prescriptions for freedom you might add three m ...

Written with such panache that one cannot fail to be impressed by the author’s eloquence and learning … Profoundly humane

We hear of freedom, but do we grasp it? In these hard times for liberty, On Freedom offers a deep inquiry arising from a diversity of perspectives. It makes the case that freedom, once explored and understood ...

On Freedom is … penetrating in its analysis of our current crises…and clear in its prescriptions for change … This is a rigorous and visionary argument … to his prescriptions for freedom you might add three m ...

Written with such panache that one cannot fail to be impressed by the author’s eloquence and learning … Profoundly humane

We hear of freedom, but do we grasp it? In these hard times for liberty, On Freedom offers a deep inquiry arising from a diversity of perspectives. It makes the case that freedom, once explored and understood ...

On Freedom is … penetrating in its analysis of our current crises…and clear in its prescriptions for change … This is a rigorous and visionary argument … to his prescriptions for freedom you might add three m ...

Written with such panache that one cannot fail to be impressed by the author’s eloquence and learning … Profoundly humane

We hear of freedom, but do we grasp it? In these hard times for liberty, On Freedom offers a deep inquiry arising from a diversity of perspectives. It makes the case that freedom, once explored and understood ...

Books by Timothy Snyder

Articles featuring Timothy Snyder

6 books about truth and freedom of speech

Dystopias: Trump’s First 100 Days

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter