A review by nuggetworldpeace
The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America, by Timothy Snyder

3.0

In many ways, this is a wildly enlightening (and terrifying) book about Russian cyber warfare and disinformation underlying the rise of the Far Right in places all around the world, but it was so hard to read for me. The information is interlaced with such bias that it's hard not to step back and wonder if this narrative is altogether balanced. I think a lot of the information, on its own, would be damning enough on their own. It's pretty shocking how egregiously bad Russian forces have been in the modern era, e.g. blatantly lying about its bloody involvement in Ukraine, possibly accelerating the refugee crisis in Syria just as they rally up anti-refugee sentiment in the EU, and producing so much false media in support of Brexit/Trump. But it's one thing to say that Russia has pushed for things and another to create theories and connections that blame Russia entirely. I'm definitely not an expert but I'd figure there are a lot of forces at play, economic/social/etc., that has led to the rise of the Far Right, not just Russia.

Some takeaways I did enjoy - the part about the Russia's attempt to absorb the Ukraine was super informative. It's scary to imagine a world without good investigative journalism, or where good journalism is drowned out by lies on social media or on state news. The parallels between Putin and Trump's language and nationalistic narratives (the so-called "politics of eternity") are also poignant, I think.