VTDigger is re-releasing some of our favorite interviews of the past decade to mark the 10th anniversary of The Vermont Conversation.

This Vermont Conversation with professor Timothy Snyder was originally published in September 2020.

Timothy Snyder is a professor of history at Yale and a world renowned scholar of authoritarianism. His 2017 international bestseller, “On Tyranny: 20 Lessons from the 20th Century,” is a roadmap to how autocrats rise and democracies fall.

Snyder has frequently appeared in the news to discuss the Ukraine-Russia conflict, and he recently met with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Rep. Jamie Raskin consulted with Snyder during President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial in 2021.

"Post-truth," Snyder wrote, "is pre-fascism."

In 2020, Snyder published “Our Malady: Lessons in Liberty from a Hospital Diary.” He described his near-death experience following a missed medical diagnosis the previous year, and he eviscerated America’s failed coronavirus response.

Snyder calls on us to rethink the fundamental connection between health and freedom. 

"Other countries look at us and for the first time ever, they sincerely pity us but also wonder, how can you have so much wealth ... and kill so many people?” Snyder asked.

"We're at a tipping point,” he said. “To say that it can't go on like this is an understatement. Things could get much worse than they are — and they might."