I finished reading this just in time for the “No Kings” protests being held across the US. This short volume is a polemic and an accurate one. Applebaum spells out the way authoritarians have undercut norms, imposed draconian limits on their citizens, and promoted conspiracies all in an effort to garner power and riches. Kleptocracy and autocracy work to enable greed and empower the corrupt despots. Applebaum calls out the naiveté of the liberal west for thinking and proclaiming that the internet and the interconnected global economy would be impossible to contain and that democratic ideals would spread — controlling the internet would be like, as Bill Clinton said, “trying to nail jello to the wall”. But history has shown that the internet has been used (abused?) to spread disinformation, conspiracies and mistrust in democracies. And economic cooperation with rogue states is a zero sum game. The primary weakness here is a lack of historical context — in this case an overview of “why do they hate us so much” in regards to imperialism, unfettered capitalism, slavery and the colonial outrages foisted on, as per the current phraseology, “the global south”.
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