Books for Our Times: “Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism,” by Anne Applebaum

Second in an ongoing series, Books for Our Times

We live in troubled and turbulent times: The great experiment in self-governance — democracy — appears to be faltering, the liberal world order appears in retreat, and authoritarian reign appears on the rise. To make sense of the chaos, what better voice to hear than one that is measured and real, deeply read and experienced, someone who “walks point” into the trouble and turbulence and comes back to report, in a personal and not oracular tone, “Here’s what I think is going on.”

That is the voice Anne Applebaum uses in her new book, “Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism,” a short book (only 189 pages) that is big on the contours of our times. While the title “Twilight of Democracy” might strike one as Wagnerian, Applebaum’s treatment is provisional and, in the end, hopeful that — if we stick together and keep thinking clearly — we can make our way through the dark to a better place.

This is the voice that first drew me to Applebaum, with her columns in The Washington Post, where she wrote for 17 years; she shifted this year to The Atlantic as a contributing writer, writing at length. In fact her voice is so free of polemic yet liberal-seeming that…