Why did the wave of enthusiasm for liberal democracy, shared across the political spectrum in the 1980s and 90s, come to an end? How did we come to be so divided? Why did everyone get so angry? 

 Acclaimed historian of totalitarian regimes as well as a penetrating analyst of contemporary politics, Anne Applebaum in her new book, Twilight of Democracy: The Failure of Politics and the Parting of Friends, offers an original interpretation of democratic decline. She charts the rise of autocratic and paranoid governments in Poland and Hungary, the cultural despair that fuelled Brexit, the media cacophony that has driven some Spaniards to return to old nationalist slogans, the apocalyptic pessimism that led many to support the election of Trump. Applebaum examines the cynical use of conspiracy theory as well as the authentic desperation of those who believe that their nation is in danger of extinction; the role of social media in creating anger and anxiety, as well as the anger at a meritocratic system that, by definition, always left some people out; and the intellectual roots of what she calls the ‘seductions of autocracy’ and shows how, given the right conditions, any society can turn against democracy. Indeed, she says, history tells us that all societies eventually will.

Political leaders and historical figures appear in the story, but Applebaum focuses above all on the dissatisfied intellectuals, philosophers, spin doctors and journalists who deliberately sought to create new definitions of “the nation,” new political realities, and sometimes deep new divisions. Many of them - in Poland, the US and the UK - were once Applebaum’s friends. Anne Applebaum is in conversation with Festival of Ideas director Andrew Kelly.

Thanks to Allen Lane for supporting this event.

This is part of our Future of Democracy series which is taking place all year and will culminate in a constitutional convention, currently scheduled for November 2020.

Twilight of Democracy: The Failure of Politics and the Parting of Friends is published by Allen Lane. Buy a copy from our bookseller partner Waterstones

Anne Applebaum is a journalist, a historian and the author of several books about the Soviet Union and central Europe. Her book Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956 was a finalist for the National Book Award and won the Cundill Prize for Historical Literature. Gulag: A History won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction. Her writing appears regularly in the Washington Post, Slate, the New York Review of Books and the Spectator, as well as Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the New Yorker and many other journals. She first reported from Poland in 1989, and still lives there part of the time with her husband, Radek Sikorski, a Polish politician and writer. She is also the author of a cookbook, "From a Polish Country House Kitchen" and a travelogue, "Between East and West." @anneapplebaum

Festival of Ideas: Anne Applebaum, 'Twilight of Democracy'