The Revenge of Power

Moisés Naím – a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the former executive director of the World Bank – details how ruthless autocrats convincingly pose as selfless populists. In this lucid exposition of the corrosive rise of populism worldwide, Naím eloquently and vehemently asserts that democracies can survive only if they counter each malignant step of autocracy’s advance.

Autocrats

Naím argues that Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin occupy different parts of the same political spectrum: Both are willing to lie extravagantly, and neither brooks dissent nor suffers second-guessing. Naím cites Trump and Putin, as well as the late Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Viktor Orban in Hungary and Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines as embracing an innovative formula to gain and consolidate power.