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Timothy Snyder traces the rise of rule that curbs freedom. He looks at Russia, Europe and America. Did liberal democracy win for good after the Cold War? Snyder questions this view. He starts with Putin’s drive to gain and hold power in Russia. He then tracks the spread of nationalism toward the West. Russian state messages and warfare online helped it spread.

Snyder looks at Poland and Hungary’s shift toward harsh rule. He also studies the 2016 votes in Britain and the United States. These votes showed public anger at each country’s long-held politics and values. What do these shifts show about the roots of democratic life?

This book of recent history is for readers concerned with threats to democracy. Snyder draws on reporting and the history of ideas. He looks at how thought about politics has changed. He weighs equal rights against rule by a few. He asks how each person fits under total state control. He also weighs truth against lies.

Snyder is an American scholar of history. He holds Yale’s Bird White Housum chair in history. He is a permanent fellow at Vienna’s Institute for Human Sciences. His work spans Eastern Europe and nationalism. It also covers total state rule and the Holocaust. This is a Romanian translation of his book. Its original title is The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America.