How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Fascism
An urgent call to action from one of Europe’s most well-regarded political thinkers and a field guide to spotting the insidious patterns and mechanisms of the populist wave sweeping the globe – with a new foreword to the 2024 edition
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.
Reviews
"Highly readable and vibrates with outrage" ― The Times
"A brilliant analysis of how democracy can be starved to death. It's one of the most important books anyone could read at the moment, when public institutions are slowly being corrupted wherever we look" -- PHILIP PULLMAN
"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
"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
"The opponents of authoritarian populist and nationalist regimes have often failed to foresee or effectively resist their rise until it was too late. This highly informed and original book is essential reading for anybody who wants to understand the forces that are convulsing our world" -- PATRICK COCKBURN
"Ece Temelkuran is a passionate authentic voice whose fearless stand against authoritarian incursion is inspiring. She writes with an urgent conviction that has never been more important than now" -- TINA BROWN
"An important, current and, most importantly, very readable book about the populist playbook and how it threatens to engulf us all" -- RICK O'SHEA
"When I left government, the first thing I read was How to Lose a Country and I couldn’t put it down. If you look at America from the outside in, it’s much clearer than looking at it from the eye of the storm. To me, Ece’s book remains the best guide to understanding the blend of right-wing populism and strongman authoritarianism that has metastasized around the world. Thanks to Ece's wise, accessible, personal and erudite book, I have been able to see much more clearly what’s been happening to American democracy and to politics in so many countries around the world" -- BEN RHODES
"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
"How to Lose a Country is a succinct and hard-hitting explainer on the rise of populism in Turkey and elsewhere, with a running refrain to western nations that consider themselves free from the threat of authoritarianism: this can happen to you" ― Financial Times
"This book is a fierce mapping of the preceding stages of dissolution. It begins with the creation of populist movements. [ . . . ] The intensity of the call for political engagement and the fluency of expression make this an urgent read. Those looking for such steadfastness should begin here" ― Irish Times
"Temelkuran is a marvellously punk writer, filling the page with wit, energy, and accessible information. [How to Lose a Country] is precise, skewering, and approachable. And nothing makes you armed to fight back like a writer who can show you the darkness of the world without preaching" -- NIKESH SHUKLA ― Vogue
"Under the mask of “populism”, fascism is everywhere on the rise, and Ece Temelkuran is one of the few political writers with the courage to call it by its proper name: this is an essential book for our time" -- DAVID WENGROW, co-author of THE DAWN OF EVERYTHING
"A brilliant analysis of how democracy can be starved to death. It's one of the most important books anyone could read at the moment, when public institutions are slowly being corrupted wherever we look" -- PHILIP PULLMAN
"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
"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
"The opponents of authoritarian populist and nationalist regimes have often failed to foresee or effectively resist their rise until it was too late. This highly informed and original book is essential reading for anybody who wants to understand the forces that are convulsing our world" -- PATRICK COCKBURN
"Ece Temelkuran is a passionate authentic voice whose fearless stand against authoritarian incursion is inspiring. She writes with an urgent conviction that has never been more important than now" -- TINA BROWN
"An important, current and, most importantly, very readable book about the populist playbook and how it threatens to engulf us all" -- RICK O'SHEA
"When I left government, the first thing I read was How to Lose a Country and I couldn’t put it down. If you look at America from the outside in, it’s much clearer than looking at it from the eye of the storm. To me, Ece’s book remains the best guide to understanding the blend of right-wing populism and strongman authoritarianism that has metastasized around the world. Thanks to Ece's wise, accessible, personal and erudite book, I have been able to see much more clearly what’s been happening to American democracy and to politics in so many countries around the world" -- BEN RHODES
"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
"How to Lose a Country is a succinct and hard-hitting explainer on the rise of populism in Turkey and elsewhere, with a running refrain to western nations that consider themselves free from the threat of authoritarianism: this can happen to you" ― Financial Times
"This book is a fierce mapping of the preceding stages of dissolution. It begins with the creation of populist movements. [ . . . ] The intensity of the call for political engagement and the fluency of expression make this an urgent read. Those looking for such steadfastness should begin here" ― Irish Times
"Temelkuran is a marvellously punk writer, filling the page with wit, energy, and accessible information. [How to Lose a Country] is precise, skewering, and approachable. And nothing makes you armed to fight back like a writer who can show you the darkness of the world without preaching" -- NIKESH SHUKLA ― Vogue
"Under the mask of “populism”, fascism is everywhere on the rise, and Ece Temelkuran is one of the few political writers with the courage to call it by its proper name: this is an essential book for our time" -- DAVID WENGROW, co-author of THE DAWN OF EVERYTHING
Ece Temelkuran is an award-winning Turkish novelist, a political thinker and a public speaker whose work has appeared in the Guardian, New York Times, Le Monde, La Stampa, New Statesman and Der Spiegel, among several international media outlets. She won the Edinburgh International Book Festival First Book award for her novel Women Who Blow on Knots and the Ambassador Of New Europe Award for her book Turkey: The Insane and the Melancholy. She is the author of the internationally acclaimed book How to Lose a Country and her most recent book, Together, was shortlisted for the Terzani Award in Italy.
