Across the globe, democracies are sliding further and further toward authoritarianism. Public confidence in democratic institutions, such as the judiciary and the press, is eroding. According to experts Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, democracy no longer ends with a bang—in a revolution or military coup—but with a whimper: the slow, steady weakening of critical institutions and long-standing political ideals. This decline of democracy, at home and abroad, is both worrying and preventable. 

Drawing on decades of research and a wide range of historical examples, from 1930s Europe to contemporary Hungary, Turkey and Venezuela to the American South during Jim Crow, Ziblatt shows how democracies die—and how ours can be saved.