ShelfLook
Tools About
Cover of Twilight of Democracy

How long does it take to read Twilight of Democracy?

The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism

Anne Applebaum

Twilight of Democracy by Anne Applebaum takes about 4 hours 6 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.

About 4 hours 6 minutes

A weekend read

First published 2020. 224 pages, about 61,600 words.

9 days at 30 minutes a day

Estimate based on 275 words per page.

At other speeds

Slow, 150 words a minute 6 hours 51 minutes
Average, 250 words a minute 4 hours 6 minutes
Fast, 400 words a minute 2 hours 34 minutes

The page count is the median across 11 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.

About the book

The Pulitzer Prize–winning historian explains, with electrifying clarity, why elites in democracies around the world are turning toward nationalism and authoritarianism. From the United States and Britain to continental Europe and beyond, liberal democracy is under siege, while authoritarianism is on the rise. In Twilight of Democracy, Anne Applebaum, an award-winning historian of Soviet atrocities who was one of the first American journalists to raise an alarm about antidemocratic trends in the West, explains the lure of nationalism and autocracy. In this captivating essay, she contends that political systems with radically simple beliefs are inherently appealing, especially when they benefit the loyal to the exclusion of everyone else. Elegantly written and urgently argued, Twilight of Democracy is a brilliant dissection of a world-shaking shift and a stirring glimpse of the road back to democratic values.

Subjects: Political science, Authoritarianism, Democracy, Nationalism, Nationalist parties, One-party systems

More by Anne Applebaum

Books like this

Popular books of similar length