Historian Anne Applebaum’s Autocracy, Inc. charts a web of global despotism but glosses over the West’s role

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Open this photo in gallery: Author Anne Applebaum.Maciej Zienkiewicz/Supplied Title: Autocracy, Inc. Autocracy, Inc. Author: Anne Applebaum Anne Applebaum Genre: Non-Fiction Non-Fiction Publisher: McClelland & Stewart McClelland & Stewart Pages: 224 Nearly a decade ago, in 2015, the American sociologist Larry Diamond warned that the world was living through a democratic recession – and had been for nearly a decade. Last year, he argued we’re still in one. In a 2023 talk, Diamond argued that a mere 43 countries with a population above one million were democracies, which represents a significant drop of roughly 20 points since 2006. While the...