On Tyranny Essay Questions

Why doesn't Snyder use Trump's name, instead referring to him as "a President"?

Snyder doesn't say exactly why he does this, so we will have to speculate. It is probably due to the fact that it may be distracting and misleading to just focus on Trump. This book isn't just about him. It is about the problem that Trump represents, and, yes, brought powerfully into the light, but tyranny is bigger than just Donald Trump.

Why did Snyder choose the structure that he did?

The book is structured as 20 "lessons," short and easily understandable exhortations to the reader. That gives it the quality of a manifesto (see essay question below), makes it easy to regurgitate for oneself and anyone the reader might be talking to, and makes it accessible for people who may not be used to reading works of history or political science or philosophy.

Is this book a manifesto?

It is certainly fair to view this work as a manifesto, which Merriam Webster defines as "a written statement declaring publicly the intentions, motives, or views of its issuer." It's small and portable in size, easy to understand, and offers practical things a person can do to combat the menace identified. Critic Darryl Holter writes of how he stopped into a bookstore in New York one day and "chatted with the genial store owner, pulled out my copy of On Tyranny, and asked him if he was selling it. 'We're selling a lot of copies. Some people buy 25 or 30 and give them to friends to read. One girl told me she leaves copies on the subway.' That is the mark of a manifesto—and it just may be the manifesto we need."

What are the book's strengths?

The book's length (it is short and easily read in a single setting), structure (it is in 20 lessons, which is easier to digest), simplicity (though he is a brilliant scholar, Snyder pares down his language to make it something that anyone can understand), straightforward tone (Snyder avoids hysteria, using facts and parallels to make his case), and skillful historical examples (Snyder has a wealth of examples that, in their accretion, make it almost impossible not to see his point) are its main strengths.

What are some criticisms of the book?

There are a few main themes in the criticisms of the book. The first is that it's too simple. Richard J. Evans writes that Snyder "seems to have rushed it out rather too quickly. It could do with far greater depth of historical illustration, not to mention recourse to the many thinkers whose wisdom we might profit from in dealing with the issue of tyranny and how to combat it." The second is that Trump is not as bad as Hitler; he is not a "genocidal maniac," as Michael Gove in the Times puts it. He adds that "where Snyder falls down is his willingness, again and again, to reach for comparisons to the Nazis to alert us to present dangers. And specifically to invite comparisons between Adolf Hitler and Donald Trump... there is a cheapening of the specific evil of Nazism, a diminution of the debt we owe to its victims, in so promiscuously using references to that regime to make contemporary political points."