The Death of Democracy

Extremely fine... with careful prose and scholarship, with fine thumbnail sketches of individuals and concise discussions of institutions and economics, he brings these events close to us. Hett... sensitively describes a moral crisis that preceded a moral catastrophe. -- Timothy Snyder * The New York Times * Intelligent, well-informed... intriguing. Hett provides a lesson about the fragility of democracy and the danger of that complacent belief that liberal institutions will always protect us. -- Gerard DeGroot * The Times * Readable and well-researched, with the injection of fresh contemporary voices, The Death of Democracy is also a thoughtful reflection of how our time more resembles the Thirties than the Noughties. * Daily Telegraph * Benjamin Carter Hett deftly summarises this dismal period... Hett refrains from poking the reader with too many obvious contemporary parallels, but he knew what he was doing when he left German out of his title. On the book's final page, he lays his cards on the table... Suddenly, the whole thing looks close and familiar. Yes, it does. -- Alex Ross * New Yorker * A superb explanation of how democracy died in Weimar Germany. Too much of this story seems painfully familiar today. -- Gerard DeGroot * The Times, 'Books of the Year' *