'An indispensable voice of and for this moment' Timothy Snyder, author of On TyrannyMany of us are consumed by news cycles reporting on Trump's latest astonishing policy or declaration, and the overwhelming sense we have is one of confusion and incredulity - how could this be happening?As the 2020 US Presidential race takes shape, SURVIVING AUTOCRACY provides an indispensable overview of the calamitous trajectory of the past few years. Drawing on h...

On February 21st 2012, five members of an obscure feminist post-punk collective called Pussy Riot staged a performance in Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. Dressed in their trademark brightly coloured dresses and balaclavas, the women performed their song 'Punk Prayer - Mother of God, Chase Putin Away!' in front of the altar. The performance lasted only 40 seconds but it resulted in two-year prison sentences for three of the performers - and has turned Pussy Riot into one of the mo...

In The Future is History Masha Gessen follows the lives of four Russians, born as the Soviet Union crumbled, at what promised to be the dawn of democracy. Each came of age with unprecedented expectations, some as the children or grandchildren of the very architects of the new Russia, each with newfound aspirations of their own - as entrepreneurs, activists, thinkers and writers, sexual and social beings. Gessen charts their paths not only against the machinations of the regime tha...

Featuring multiple narrators, each essay is brought uniquely and vivdly to life.“The essayist needs the objective world,” writes M. Gessen, the guest editor of The Best American Essays 2026, asking, “But does the objective world need the essayist?” There is no straightforward answer to Gessen’s query, yet the authors in this volume tackle it headfirst. In doing so, they provide a mosaic depicting the year 2025, examining the degradation of American media, ...