Snyder offers 20 tips, guidances, tenets that we, as citizens should observe to ensure that (even if it does not say it as such) avoid the repeat of some of the key electoral outcomes we have seen, notably but not only in the U.S., since 2016. “On Tyranny” is a body of key precepts grounded in the history of the 20th century and addressing mostly but not only an American audience that are needed to maintain what we know as democracy and we should ensure does not lead to any perverted outcome resulting from the oft glorified will of the people, the latter who could so easily be led astray or lose their compass. I actually think that, while everybody should read it, it is the perfect summer reading gift for your kids and/or grandkids from the time-, social media-, iPhone- and screen-constrained generations who may need some guidance on what actually matters. It is an enjoyable reading and is indeed short which also has its merits in today’s world. “On Tyranny”, which has a Clauzewitzian air, as John Lewis Gaddis, remarked too when he did his “On Grand Strategy”, that you know, is not a book in the strictest sens as it is more an essay of about 100 pages or, as a well-known thinker told me two weeks ago, a series of aphorisms that all of us should agree with. And I am writing this so you all know where the historical roots of my fight and drive are located. I am actually looking forward to telling you about books coming from that other Cambridge on the Charles. Just to be clear, I like Yale and its prestigious history, Skull and Bones, the CIA’s cradle, Bill & Hillary’s nest, its beautiful colleges and campus, Papa John’s Pizza and my daughter’s alma mater but I remain a Harvard man as the young Frenchman who went there at 21 as an ESL student searching for a new life, drawn by a world with no limits, spending too much time at Yenching and going on to study history, economics and business (since 1981) even if never enrolling in any of the usual degrees in spite of once a very artful bid by the late and great Stanley Hoffman. I want to stress that it is just because they tend to produce great books these days. I know it is the third book I tell you about coming from Yale. Snyder today, in his late 40s, is probably the leading rising historian at Yale. Snyder is the author of “The Road to Unfreedom” which he had written just before “On Tyranny” and that I already shared with you and has specialised on European history with a focus on central & eastern Europe, particularly known for its “Bloodlands” that won prizes worldwide. I wanted to come back to Yale’s Timothy Snyder who had written “On Tyranny”, again like Ed Luce and his famed “Retreat of Liberalism” in the aftermath of Trump’s election, in the face of the multiple rise of populism across the West.

Thomas snyder on tyranny