Историк Тимоти Снайдер выпустил краткое руководство «О тирании» с уроками из XX века

I have a solid and satisfying correspondence with a history professor friend in Pennsylvania. His name is Dave. We write each other about what we’re each working on, travels taken and visits made, books we recommend. Let me be clear. We write each other letters, by hand, that are then put in an envelope, stamped and mailed. Dave has a great collection of stamps from years gone by, so his mail is a special treat with stamps from a time when the price of postage was ON the stamp. A recent envelope featured: Andy Warhol (37 cents), Capt. James Cook (13 cents), Lunar New Year (34 cents), and a moose and a chipmunk (every 13 cents). Way more postage than needed, but so fun to look at. Dave offers a one-credit class to undergraduates called History Book Club, which meets once a week to discuss a modest and accessible list of history / history-related books. Discussion, brief writing assignments, and attendance are required. Where was History Book Club when I was in college? In his last epistle, Dave mentioned Timothy Snyder’s book, On Tyranny. I know of Timothy Snyder from having heard him interviewed and from listening to the excellent history podcast “Throughline.” If you assume that On Tyranny is some political screed, you would be mistaken. Snyder is a scholar of history, mainly the twentieth century, in places like Europe (all of it, east and west) and Russia (formerly the Soviet Union). Published in 2017, its subtitle is “Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century.” It is more a chapbook than a book, the size of a postcard or a 4-by-6 photograph, and is only 126 pages long. What Snyder has done is take a tumultuous and consequential period in human history by showing the reader what happens to real live people, communities, and nations when the ingredients appear and the temperature is right. It is often not good. On the very first page, in the Prologue, he writes, “History does not repeat, but it does instruct,” and he goes on in the next line to remember our Founding Fathers. The book can be read in a sitting, will not burden the reader with the nattering of academic language, and provides basic and elemental lessons for both reviewing history and for responding to the historical moment we are in. You need not be a historian or a great fan of non-fiction to take heed (and heart) from some of his lessons, such as: Lesson 5: Remember Professional Ethics; Lesson 9: Be Kind to Our Language; or Lesson 12: Make Eye Contact and Small Talk. On page 83, Snyder advises, “Get outside. Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people.” And, a man after my own heart, he writes on page 62, “So get the screens out of your room and surround yourself with books... Any good novel enlivens our ability to think about ambiguous situations and judge the intentions of others.” I have just recommended Snyder’s book to a genre book club I’m in, and it has been much on my mind. I also borrowed the audiobook version of On Tyranny from Libby. The author reads his own work, and it was powerful and instructive to hear his voice and gain further insight. I hope this modest endorsement has piqued your interest.