Interview with Charles Dunst, author of Defeating the Dictators: How Democracy Can Prevail in the Age of the Strongman
Charles Dunst, author of Defeating the Dictators: How Democracy Can Prevail in the Age of the Strongman recommends an important batch of books! Before jumping into the interview, please check out Charles' book:
Review from Book Depository:
The world is currently experiencing the lowest levels of democracy we have seen in over thirty years. Autocracy is on the rise, and while the cost of autocracy seems evident, it nevertheless remains an attractive option to many.
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Defeating the Dictators: How Democracy Can Prevail in the Age of the Strongman
While leaders like Viktor Orban disrupt democratic foundations from within, autocrats like Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin do so from abroad, eroding democratic institutions and values and imperilling democracies that appear increasingly fragile. There are even those who, disillusioned with the current institutions in place, increasingly think authoritarianism can deliver them a better life than democracy has or could.
They're wrong. Autocracy is not the solution - better democracy is. But we have to make the case for it. We have to combat institutional rot by learning from one another, and, at times, from our rivals. And we have to get our own houses in order. Only then can we effectively stand up for democratic values around the world and defeat the dictators.
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Easons €13.99
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Q. Do you have a favourite smart thinking book (and why that book)?
I'm slightly cheating with this answer, but it's two books: Francis Fukuyama's The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution and Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy. Those books offer a truly grand and sweeping examination of how humans built our world – and what seems to be going wrong today. I wrote all over my copies and still find myself coming back to them with regularity.
Review From Book Depository
Nations are not trapped by their pasts, but events that happened hundreds or even thousands of years ago continue to exert huge influence on present-day politics. If we are to understand the politics that we now take for granted, we need to understand its origins.
(All links earn commission from purchases. Prices accurate at time of writing) Review From Book Depository
In The Origins of Political Order, Francis Fukuyama took us from the dawn of mankind to the French and American Revolutions. Here, he picks up the thread again in the second instalment of his definitive account of mankind's emergence as a political animal.
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The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution
Francis Fukuyama examines the paths that different societies have taken to reach their current forms of political order. This book starts with the very beginning of mankind and comes right up to the eve of the French and American revolutions, spanning such diverse disciplines as economics, anthropology and geography. The Origins of Political Order is a magisterial study on the emergence of mankind as a political animal, by one of the most eminent political thinkers writing today.
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Wordery $12.99
Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy
This is the story of how state, law and democracy developed after these cataclysmic events, how the modern landscape - with its uneasy tension between dictatorships and liberal democracies - evolved and how in the United States and in other developed democracies, unmistakable signs of decay have emerged.
If we want to understand the political systems that dominate and order our lives, we must first address their origins - in our own recent past as well as in the earliest systems of human government. Fukuyama argues that the key to successful government can be reduced to three key elements: a strong state, the rule of law and institutions of democratic accountability.
This magisterial account is required reading for anyone wishing to know more about mankind's greatest achievements.
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Q. What's the most recent smart thinking book you've read (and how would you rate it)?
I learned a ton from Aynne Kokas's new book, Trafficking Data: How China Is Winning the Battle for Digital Sovereignty. I reviewed it favorably for the Council on Foreign Relations – and while I didn't give it any stars in that review, I would rate it five out of five.
Review From Book Depository:
From TikTok and Fortnite to Grindr and Facebook, Aynne Kokas delivers an urgent look into the technology firms that gather our data, and how the Chinese government is capitalizing on this data flow for political gain.
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Trafficking Data: How China Is Winning the Battle for Digital Sovereignty
On August 6, 2020, the Trump Administration issued a ban on TikTok in the United States, requiring that the owner, Beijing-based Bytedance, sell the company to American investors or shut it down. Legions of TikTokers were devastated at the possible loss of their beloved platform, and for what: a political grudge with China? American suitors like Walmart and Oracle tried to make a deal with Bytedance to keep the platform operating in the US. But then something curious happened. The Chinese
government refused to let Bytedance sell TikTok on national security grounds. As it turns out, the pandemic era platform for dance challenges is a Chinese government asset.
As digital technologies and social media have evolved into organizing forces for the way in which we conduct our work and social lives, the business logic that undergirds these digital platforms has become clear: we are their product. We give these businesses information about everything-from where we live and work to what we like to do for entertainment, what we consume, where we travel, what we think politically, and with whom we are friends and acquaintances. We do this willingly, but often
without a full understanding of how this information is stored or used, or what happens to it when it crosses international boundaries. As Aynne Kokas argues, both corporations and governments "traffic" much of this data without our consent-and sometimes illegally-for political and financial gain.
In Trafficking Data, Aynne Kokas looks at how technology firms in the two largest economies in the world, the United States and China, have exploited government policy (and the lack thereof) to gather information on citizens, putting US national security at risk. Kokas argues that US government leadership failures, Silicon Valley's disruption fetish, and Wall Street's addiction to growth have fuelled China's technological goldrush. In turn, American complacency yields an unprecedented
opportunity for Chinese firms to gather data in the United States and quietly send it back to China, and by extension, to the Chinese government. Drawing on years of fieldwork in the US and China and a large trove of corporate and policy documents, Trafficking Data explains how China is fast becoming the
global leader in internet governance and policy, and thus of the data that defines our public and private lives.
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Q. Do you have a favourite childhood book?
Haroun and the Sea of Stories, by Salman Rushdie. I remember reading it as a kid and being completely blown away by the breadth of the story – and Rushdie's somewhat chaotic style. I didn't know books were allowed to be written like that. I definitely didn't understand most of the book as a 12- or 13-year-old, so I should probably read it again sometime soon.
Review From Book Depository:
Haroun's father is the greatest of all storyletters. His magical stories bring laughter to the sad city of Alifbay. But one day something goes wrong and his father runs out of stories to tell. Haroun is determined to return the storyteller's gift to his father. So he flies off on the back of the Hoopie bird to the Sea of Stories - and a fantastic adventure begins.
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Haroun and the Sea of Stories
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Easons €11.19
Book Depository €11.39
Waterstones £7.99
Wordery $8.69
Q. Do you prefer reading on paper, Kindle or listening to an audiobook?
On paper. I write all over my books, fiction or non-fiction, so hard copies are a must. But I actually prefer paperbacks to hardbacks – paperbacks are easier to carry and write in!
Q. Do you have a favourite bookshop (and why that shop)?
I'm cheating again with two answers. My first favorite is Backstory bookshop, an independent store in south London that I love because of its commitment to serving a neighborhood near where I used to live. They also hosted my London book release party, so I'm biased. My second favorite is Kramers books, in Washington, D.C.; I now live right across the river in Virginia, but I love Kramers – it's always busy; the selection is great; and they have a restaurant in the back.
Many thanks to Charles for recommending an important batch of books! Please don't forget to check out Defeating the Dictators: How Democracy Can Prevail in the Age of the Strongman.
Daryl
Image Copyrights: Hodder & Stoughton (Defeating The Dictators), Profile Books Ltd (The Origins of Political Order, Political Order and Political Decay), Oxford University Press Inc (Trafficking Data), Penguin Random House Children's UK (Haroun and the Sea of Stories),
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