Timothy Snyder
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Mark All
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After more than a year and a half of war, it can be hard to imagine it ending. And yet it can, and will. The Ukrainians can win this war, provided that we do not let them down. What they cannot do is constantly remind us how important the wa
Today the Ukrainian president visits to thank Americans for our support. The right kind of hospitality would be to thank Ukrainians for all that they have done for us and others. Here are ten reasons we should be grateful.(Kherson Oblast, Ukrai
Dear Friends,This is a lecture I delivered yesterday (6 April 2023) at Princeton University, in a series devoted to the European Union, and in the presence of colleagues who study Europe as social scientists and historians (and I was impressed
Russia’s war against Ukraine has been genocidal from the beginning. Genocide is a matter of actions, and a matter of intentions. In this lecture, delivered at Boston University on 28 October 2022, I give examples of all five of the crimes tha
In this lecture, which I will summarize briefly here, I take the premise seriously. Democracy might or might not have a future. The signs, in general, are not good. The tendency, also in this country, is not encouraging. Our republic might
In this lecture, I begin from a recent clip on Russian television: a Russian soldier explaining that, if Ukrainians do not accept that they are Russians, it will be necessary to kill a million of them, five million of them, or all of them.The m
This year I have been writing a philosophical book about freedom, in which the war in Ukraine and Volodymyr Zelens’kyi figure in important ways. A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of a long conversation with President Zelens’kyi, which w
Lesson 13. Practice corporeal politics. Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen. Get outside. Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people. Make new friends and march with them. T
Lesson 12. Make eye contact and small talk. This is not just polite. It is part of being a citizen and a responsible member of society. It is also a way to stay in touch with your surroundings, break down social barriers, and understand whom
Lesson 11: Investigate. Figure things out for yourself. Spend more time with long articles. Subsidize investigative journalism by subscribing to print media. Realize that some of what is on the internet is there to harm you. Learn about sites
Lesson 10: Believe in Truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the
Lesson 9: Avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does. Think up your own way of speaking, even if only to convey that thing you think everyone is saying. Make an effort to separate yourself from the internet. Read books. This is a public e
Lesson 8: Stand out. Someone has to. It is easy to follow along. It can feel strange to do or say something different. But without that unease, there is no freedom. Remember Rosa Parks. The moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo
Lesson 7. “If you carry a weapon in public service, may God bless you and keep you. But know that evils of the past involved policemen and soldiers finding themselves, one day, doing irregular things. Be ready to say no.”In the podcast, I go i
Dear All, It’s been one of the great pleasures of my life as a writer to speak about the new graphic edition of On Tyranny with its illustrator, Nora Krug. Her interpretation of the book is astounding and beautiful, and in our public conversat
As you know, I am releasing new discussions of the twenty lessons from On Tyranny, first as videos (notifying subscribers) and then as podcasts (for everyone). We have reached the fifth of twenty podcasts. In the book, the fifth lesson reads:
The text of lesson four reads:“Take responsibility for the face of the world. The symbols of today enable the reality of tomorrow. Notice the swastikas and the other signs of hate. Do not look away, and do not get used to them. Remove them
“Lesson 3. Beware the one-party state. The parties that remade states and suppressed rivals were not omnipotent from the start. They exploited a historic moment to make political life impossible for their opponents. So support the multiple-p
The last podcast was about lesson one, not obeying in advance. That is the first lesson of On Tyranny because all of the others depend upon it. If we do obey in advance, if we normalize what is coming before it even arrives, we are part of th
Today is the publication day of a new graphic edition of my book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. Thanks to the extraordinary artwork of Nora Krug, it is now a deeper and better book. I have kept the lessons exactly as t
Dear Friends, this essay elicited touching and interesting reactions, and I am encouraged to think and write more about our melancholy politics of parenting. This was also my most widely read essay at the time it was published, which was 20 Ma
Dear Friends, this is one of my favorite posts. I think some of it works better in the spoken language. I hope you enjoy it. I am sending this one out to everyone, although in general the podcasts are for subscribers. If you would like to h
This is my most recent post, read aloud by me. I chose to record it first, and to send it to everyone, because it deals with the preservation of democracy in the United States.If you would like to receive podcast versions of my other posts, pl
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