Freethinkers Book Club: Autocracy, Inc. by Anne Applebaum

Freethinkers Book Club

Autocracy, Inc.

by Anne Applebaum

Host: Karen Campbell

Tue, Feb 11, 2025

Panera Bread (Oakland) (6:15 pm - 8:30 pm)

3401 Blvd of the Allies, Pittsburgh

https://meet.google.com/kde-uzhx-gxs (7 pm - 8:30 pm)

Please join us between 6:15 and 7 pm for dinner and informal conversation at Panera Bread.  The book discussion will start at 7 pm, where participants may also join online via Google Meet.

We are in a new era, a new world order, but how do we define it, and what is the fundamental threat?

In her new book, Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World, Anne Applebaum explores how modern authoritarianism, which she calls “autocracy,” operates through an interconnected network of illiberal regimes that threaten liberal democracies. What unites this network of dictators isn’t ideology, but their shared goal of preserving wealth and maintaining power at all costs. Through corrupt financial dealings, disinformation campaigns, destabilization tactics, and military action, leaders in countries like Russia, China, Venezuela, and others share tactics, financial systems, and complex grids to undermine democratic institutions and threaten the global world order.

In this short book, Applebaum analyzes history, decisions, and circumstances that led to this end, as well as offering what we can do. Applebaum is a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and journalist known for her extensive writings on authoritarianism, Eastern-European history, and democracy.

Please join if you have not read the book, but also have a look at one or more of the following resources.

• Anne Applebaum, Autocracy, Inc. Commonwealth Club World Affairs (CCWA) 
• NPR Review: These dictators are different. 'Autocracy, Inc.' explains how
• After the End of Naivety: Anne Applebaum on Current Autocratic Threats and the Path Forward
• Anne Applebaum — Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World.

Please join us!

Participants are encouraged to join PFC if not already a member.
https://pghfreethought.org/Become-a-member