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This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley and my guest today is Anne Applebaum, who's been writing for years about the rise in authoritarianism

around the world and the erosion of democracy.

Her latest book, Autocracy Inc. The Dictators who Want to Run the World is a potent read on how today's autocracies

are not just ruled by one powerful leader but are instead a sophisticated

interconnected network. She reveals how they collaborate and

support each other through financial systems, technology, and

propaganda that spans well beyond their borders. This loose network which

includes nations like Russia, China, and North Korea, isn't an alliance.

They don't share an ideology.

But they do have one thing in common.

They don't like us, and they're growing more powerful in the fight

against democracy. Applebaum says in order to fight this threat democracies like

the US have to fundamentally reorient their policies.

Anne Applebaum is the author of several books including Goulog, a history, which won the Pulitzer

Prize, Iron Curtain, the crushing of Eastern Europe,

1944 to 1956,

and the best-selling twilight of democracy,

the seductive lure of authoritarianism.

...