Choice
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.

Following the defeat of Nazism and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the democratic world now faces a new threat in the form of an international network of kleptocrats and dictators whose primary objective is to undermine democracy. In this important book, Applebaum, a staff writer for The Atlantic and author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning book Gulag (2003), describes what she calls "Autocracy, Inc.": the dictators who collaborate to keep themselves in power. Unlike with communism or fascism, the strongmen who today lead Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, and dozens of other countries govern not to uphold ideologies but to preserve their personal wealth and power while depriving their citizens of any real influence or public voice. Unlike military or political alliances, autocratic states operate not as a bloc but rather like an agglomeration of companies bound by a ruthless determination to maintain their political domination over their powerless populations. Applebaum describes how these autocratic states are supported by kleptocratic financial structures, surveillance technologies, social media, and professional propagandists. They are all bound by the same message: the weakness of democracy and the evil of America. Summing Up: Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty; professionals --Jack Robert Fischel, emeritus, Millersville University

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

The noted journalist and student of tyranny turns her attention to Trump, Putin, and numerous other modern authoritarians. “A world in which autocracies work together to stay in power, work together to promote their system, and work together to damage democracies is not some distant dystopia,” writes Applebaum. “That world is the one we are living in right now.” In the meantime, she notes, democracies, as if paralyzed, accommodate both the lawlessness of the autocrats and the violence they incite: Witness, for instance, the growing myth that Jan. 6, 2021, was acceptable political expression. Whereas autocrats once worked singly, today they’re shored up by an international kleptocracy and shared understandings—don’t criticize my oppressiveness, and I won’t criticize yours—that make allies of disparate rulers from Washington to Budapest to Harare. These rulers are shameless, Applebaum notes. They no longer bother to disguise their acts of aggression and brutality, as with Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, a declaration that old rules no longer applied. Autocrats differ in style, but they share a hatred for an independent judiciary, representative government, and the free press—i.e., all the hallmarks of democracy. Against this, Applebaum suggests, it behooves the democratic nations of the world to band together in mutual support precisely because “their democracies are not safe.” One means of support would be to reject news that comes from the likes of Russia Today and Xinhua, which inform so much antidemocratic dissension in the “free world,” and instead insist on reliable information. Exactly how this is to be achieved isn’t quite clear, but it’s a worthy idea, as is the suggestion that increased policing of kleptocratic antics and their enablers—not least “the bankers in Sioux Falls happy to accept mystery deposits from mystery clients”—is needed. Central to any discussion of modern totalitarianism. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.