Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism

　　放眼世界，不論是美國、歐洲或是其他國家，民主自由的價值觀已經漸漸式微，取而代之的是各式威權主義的興起。對於這樣的結果，許多人大感意外，但本書作者安‧艾普邦姆認為，那些具有極端、簡單信念的政治體系，本身即有其吸引力，尤其是當人們能從中圖利、得到排他性的特權時，轉而選擇奔向威權並非不可想像之事。

　　在這個社會求生的人，看重的不只是意識型態，還在乎生存的方式與富裕的機會，而威權主義及民族主義正好提供了一個通向富有及權勢的道路，自然有許多人會轉而投誠於他們。

　　艾普邦姆帶我們看見許多在英國、美國、西班牙、波蘭以及匈牙利的政治家、記者、知識分子等其他身分的人，都選擇背向民主自由，而他們又是如何藉由陰謀論、分化、社群媒體及宣揚往日光輝一步步改變現在這個社會。(文/博客來編譯)

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - ＂How did our democracy go wrong? This extraordinary document ... is Applebaum’s answer.＂ --Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny

The Pulitzer Prize-winning historian explains, with electrifying clarity, why elites in democracies around the world are turning toward nationalism and authoritarianism.

From the United States and Britain to continental Europe and beyond, liberal democracy is under siege, while authoritarianism is on the rise. In Twilight of Democracy, Anne Applebaum, an award-winning historian of Soviet atrocities who was one of the first American journalists to raise an alarm about antidemocratic trends in the West, explains the lure of nationalism and autocracy. In this captivating essay, she contends that political systems with radically simple beliefs are inherently appealing, especially when they benefit the loyal to the exclusion of everyone else. Elegantly written and urgently argued, Twilight of Democracy is a brilliant dissection of a world-shaking shift and a stirring glimpse of the road back to democratic values.

ANNE APPLEBAUM’s 2018 Atlantic article ＂A Warning from Europe＂ inspired this book and was a finalist for a National Magazine Award. After seventeen years as a columnist at The Washington Post, Applebaum became a staff writer at The Atlantic in 2020. She is the author of three critically acclaimed and award-winning histories of the Soviet Union: Red Famine, Iron Curtain, and Gulag, winner of the Pulitzer Prize.