B&N in my city has a nice prominent section full of all these types of books on display so you can get all your anti-authoritarian lit in one place. Some good ones I’d recommend:
they thought they were free (Mayer)
This is a great book. A journalist travels to post Nazi Germans to interview 10 normal dudes in a small town from different walks of life, seeking to understand how/why Germans fell to Hitler. It’s very unsettling and candid and demonstrates how there are no easy or satisfying conclusions. It does a good job showing you just how easy it is to become a bystander or even complicit when you’re just a normal person just with life.
the origins of totalitarianism (Arendt)
This is more of an academic study on the process of an authoritarian takeover. Literally nothing we are seeing now is new.
diary of a man in despair (Reck)
This is a very personal recounting of a Prussian aristocrat who lived (and died, when the journal was discovered) in Nazi germany. He was an old school conservative and not really a fan of democracy or activist or anything like that, he just really, really hated Nazis/Hitler because of how they perverted society and destroyed traditions. A good short read for those coming from a centrist or conservative perspective.
on tyranny (Pinketty)
This is maybe the one you should get if you can get only one; it’s digestible and sources many primary documents to give you the hard lessons and anecdotes on what to do in the situation we presently find ourselves in.
There were many more books as well, but these are the ones I’d recommend. Read them and share so that we don’t waste the benefit of having historical context and hindsight.
by airbear13
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The “Among the Hidden” books were among my first introduction to the dangers of an authoritarian government. It’s a series aimed at children and teens about a society where each family can only have 2 children, but it follows the “hidden children” (or those children born beyond the 2 child maximum). I remember them being really good, although I haven’t read them in a while.
M. Gessen – Surviving Autocracy.
Given that it’s written about their experiences surviving Russia’s (re-)descent into one-party, one-man rule, it is appropriate to our current moment