On Tyranny

Timothy Snyder distills the collapse of twentieth-century democracies into twenty urgent lessons for resisting authoritarianism today. Drawing on the fall of Weimar Germany, the rise of Soviet totalitarianism, and the mechanics of fascist consolidation across interwar Europe, Snyder argues that tyranny advances not through dramatic coups but through ordinary citizens' small capitulations. Each lesson functions as a concrete act of defiance: defend institutions before they need defending, make eye contact and small talk, believe in truth.

You'll learn:

- Why anticipatory obedience is tyranny's first enabler

- How dangerous language normalizes oppression before violence begins

- What twentieth-century resisters knew that we've forgotten