Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt

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How Democracies Die (2015)

April 15th, 2018

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Drawing on decades of research and a wide range of historical and global examples -- from 1930s Europe to contemporary Hungary, Turkey, and Venezuela; also to the American South during Jim Crow -- Levitsky and Ziblatt show how democracies die and how ours can be saved.

In 2021, The Economist described it as arguably the most important book of our current era.

How Democracies Die  (2015)
I don’t think we can any longer rely on separation of powers, free speech, religious tolerance or unchallengeable civil liberties as a matter of course. That is, not while finite humans in the flux of time make decisions of infinite damage. Not while finite humans make infinite claims of virtue and unassailable power that are beyond their competence, if not their reach.

Toni Morrison, commencement address at Wellesley College, 2004