The Revenge of Power: How Autocrats Are Reinventing Politics for the 21st Century *(Epub)
“An authoritative and intelligent portrait of the global spread of authoritarianism and its dangers...what sets [this] work apart from books like Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny and Michiko Kakutani’s The Death of Truth is its unusually comprehensive armada of facts about the international drift over the past two decades toward authoritarian leaders, whether old-style dictators like Kim Jong Un or nominally elected presidents like Vladimir Putin.” ―Kirkus An urgent, thrilling, and original look at the future of democracy that illuminates one of the most important battles of our time: the future of freedom and how to contain and defeat the autocrats mushrooming around the world. In his bestselling book The End of Power, Moisés Naím examined power-diluting forces. In The Revenge of Power, Naím turns to the trends, conditions, technologies and behaviors that are contributing to the concentration of power, and to the clash between those forces that weaken power and those that strengthen it. He concentrates on the three “P”s―populism, polarization, and post-truths. All of which are as old as time, but are combined by today’s autocrats to undermine democratic life in new and frightening ways. Power has not changed. But the way people go about gaining it and using it has been transformed. The Revenge of Power is packed with alluring characters, riveting stories about power grabs and loses, and vivid examples of the tricks and tactics used by autocrats to counter the forces that are weakening their power. It connects the dots between global events and political tactics that, when taken together, show a profound and often stealthy transformation in power and politics worldwide. Using the best available data and insights taken from recent research in the social sciences, Naím reveals how, on close examination, the same set of strategies to consolidate power pop up again and again in places with vastly different political, economic, and social circumstances, and offers insights about what can be done to ensure that freedom and democracy prevail. The outcomes of these battles for power will determine if our future will be more autocratic or more democratic. Naím addresses the questions at the heart of the matter: Why is power concentrating in some places while in others it is fragmenting and degrading? And the big question: What is the future of freedom? Read more
Download Now
Why Must Read The Revenge of Power: How Autocrats Are Reinventing Politics for the 21st Century?
In The Revenge of Power: How Autocrats Reivent Politics for the 21st Century, author Moises Naim begins with a haunting epigraph: "We do not know what is happening to us, and that is precisely the thing that is happening to us." Naim then describes this thing that is happening to us: An enemy from within is growing, not a military force, but a malignant spirit that hungers for raw power at the expense of free democracy. This malignant spirit is in the reality TV star turned Twitter Troll, the former guy who won’t admit he lost the 2020 election and his troll followers; such grifters serve autocrats all over the world. They hate free democracy and attack it with a vengeance, thus the book’s title: The Revenge of Power. This malignant power threatens the “expansion of prosperity and security” in the kind of free democracy that found its underpinnings in the American and French Revolutions of the eighteenth century when constrained power was leveraged through rule of law, justice, and a liberal democracy. With autocracies relying on technology, social media, cultural identify politics, globalization, and populism to assert their power, Naim argues that liberal democracy “is no longer the default setting.” In other words, freedom is no longer a guarantee for any of us. Naim observes that this wave of autocracy trolls create innovations to gain and maintain power, do not play by the rules or any kind of established playbook, and their methods must be analyzed if defenders of freedom and liberal democracy are to make an effective stand against the autocrats. One of the key points in this book is that as traditional power in the form of liberal democracy loses its foothold, the unconventional power-seekers find holes in the system to wiggle into the halls of power and as such these power-seekers are grifters and conmen. Naim wants us to understand these grifters’ methods so we can defend ourselves. Understanding their “style of leadership” is Naim’s core aim in writing this book. The method is three-fold or known as the 3Ps: the autocrat uses populism, polarization, and post-truth to achieve his aims. Naim is a great writer. His prose is trenchant, direct, and powerful. There is no filler in this book, which represents the best form of political science: a combination of politics, psychology, sociology, and history to present the warring forces and ideas that define the problem we face in this particular time. Recommended.
Read Now