**A New Yorker Best Book of the YearA Foreign Affairs Best Book of the YearAn Atlantic Best Book of the YearA Financial Times Best Politics Book of the YearHow a new breed of dictators holds power by manipulating information and faking democracy**Hitler, Stalin, and Mao ruled through violence, fear, and ideology. But in recent decades a new breed of media-savvy strongmen has been redesigning authoritarian rule for a m...

Corruption, fake news, and the "informational autocracy" sustaining Putin in powerAfter fading into the background for many years following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia suddenly has emerged as a new threat-at least in the minds of many Westerners. But Western assumptions about Russia, and in particular about political decision-making in Russia, tend to be out of date or just plain wrong.Under the leadership of Vladimir Putin since 2000, Russia i...

Hitler, Stalin, and Mao ruled through violence, fear, and ideology. But in recent decades a new breed of media-savvy strongmen has been redesigning authoritarian rule for a more sophisticated, globally connected world. In place of overt, mass repression, rulers such as Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Viktor Orbán control their citizens by distorting information and simulating democratic procedures. Like spin doctors in democracies, they spin the news to engineer support. Uncoveri...