Brainwash Festival x De Balie x TivoliVredenburg - Historian, journalist, and Pulitzer Prize winner Anne Applebaum dissects modern dictatorship. What threat do the growing autocracies pose?

When thinking of a dictator, one often imagines a malicious villain – someone we know from an action movie. Historian, journalist, and Pulitzer Prize winner Anne Applebaum challenges this image. In her latest book Autocracy, Inc., she describes how autocratic regimes are intertwined in intricate, international networks with the primary goal of self-enrichment. Autocrats are doing more business with each other than ever before, protecting each other and working together to destabilize the democratic order. What threat do these modern dictatorial networks pose?

About the collaboration: This Brainwash Special with Anne Applebaum is a collaboration between De Balie, TivoliVredenburg, and Brainwash Festival, and is part of the Forum on European Culture 2025 in Amsterdam.

About Anne Applebaum: Anne Applebaum (1964) is a historian and writer specializing in Eastern European and Soviet history. She has written several award-winning books, including Gulag: A History, which won the Pulitzer Prize, and her latest Autocracy, Inc. The Dictators Who Want to Run the World. Applebaum is also a staff writer at The Atlantic and a senior fellow at the Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. Her work provides critical insight into the rise of authoritarianism and the fragility of democracy.

Moderator: Merlijn Geurts

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