How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Fascism

Canons

By: Ece Temelkuran

Narrated by: Ece Temelkuran

How to Lose a Country is a warning to the world that populism and nationalism don’t march fully-formed into government; they creep.

Award-winning author and journalist Ece Temelkuran identifies the early warning signs of this phenomenon, sprouting up across the world from Eastern Europe to South America, in order to arm the reader with the tools to recognise it and take action.

Weaving memoir, history and clear-sighted argument, Temelkuran proposes alternative answers to the pressing – and too often paralysing – political questions of our time. How to Lose a Country is an exploration of the insidious ideas at the core of these movements and an urgent, eloquent defence of democracy.

This 2024 edition includes a new foreword by the author.©2024 Ece Temelkuran (P)2024 Canongate Books Ltd

Critic reviews

'This is essential' (MARGARET ATWOOD)

'The burning topic of today: populism. Vivid, visionary, terrifyingly familiar, this book is essential reading for everyone on planet Earth' (ANDREW SEAN GREER)

'Ece Temelkuran elegantly and wittily demolishes our most enduring and damaging political illusions. But she also cannily intuits and eloquently describes our deepest unmet needs for justice, peace and stability. Anyone rattled and disorientated by the political earthquakes of recent years ought to read her, and find solid ground again' (PANKAJ MISHRA)

'This is a keenly observed and passionately written book. Read it or be prepared to lose your country' (RABIH ALAMEDDINE)

'A stunning, sane and intimate chronicle of a world gone nuts. An urgent whisper in our ears about our modern dictators and their collaborators' (MOHAMMED HANIF)