Reflections on Resilience and Timothy Snyder’s Books

My absence explained: I fell – took a face down sudden lurch to the concrete. Cracked my phone, head, both hands and remaining pride.
Three weeks later and I’m close to normal.

My advice: Don’t fall. I’m now putting safeguards in place so I don’t fall again.

Yet good things come: lots of time and space to read. Two books, same author sit before me:
On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From The Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder, 126 pages, published 2017, book given me by a member of Gainesville, FL., Quaker community. Second book, On Freedom, Timothy Snyder, 345 pages, published 2024, loaned by Dunedin, Fl. Library.

Here’s part of what Wikipedia (a favorite information source) recently says about author Timothy Snyder:

In interviews with The Guardian for the article “Putin, Trump, Ukraine: how Timothy Snyder became the leading interpreter of our dark times”, Snyder described history as follows: “a constant, exciting discovery of things that actually happened, which weren’t anticipated and which were probably considered wildly improbable at the time. (…) And once you know that, then you can have the intuition that, well, maybe in this moment right now there’s something happening which people aren’t seeing.” Drawing on the lessons of European history, Snyder introduced two terms into American political discussion: big lie, in reference to Donald Trump’s claim that he won the 2020 election; and memory laws, to describe Republican state legislators’ bills that were designed to guide and control American understanding of the past, in some cases affirming free speech while banning divisive speech.

Timothy Snyder – Wikipedia – 1-21-26

1. Get ahold of “On Tyranny” as soon as you can. Read this little book.

Excerpt:

“Chapter 6: Be wary of paramilitaries.

When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system, start wearing uniforms and marching with torches and pictures of a leader, the end is nigh. When the pro-leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the end has come.

What was novel in 2016 was a candidate who ordered a private security detail to clear opponents from rallies and encouraged the audience itself to remove people who expressed different opinions.

For violence to transform not just the atmosphere but also the system, the emotions of rallies and the ideology of exclusion have to be incorporated into the training of armed guards. These first challenge the police and military, then penetrate the police and military, and finally transform the police and military,”

pp 42-6.

1. “On Freedom” strikes me as an entirely different book. I have read it. For me, this book is an education and a joy. I love learning and I could almost feel the author, Timothy Snyder, aiming to inform and to use himself and his/our time of life to help his readers understand our changed world. Here is an example:

In 2016, exactly the same Russian institutions exploited exactly the same social media strategies to attack Hillary Clinton. Some Americans were told over social media that Clinton was a racist, others that she liked Black criminals. The contradiction did not matter, just as it had not mattered with respect to the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine, because the different messages were targeted at different people. An important Russian actor in the campaigns of 2014 and 2016 was Yevgeny Prigozhin, who ran Russia’s Internet Research Agency. Prigozhin also directed a private military company called Wagner.

It is disturbing to think that our emotions, and even our actions, arise from the work of such people. But they do, and that makes us less free. Our emotions can be automated because our networked portable microprocessors ceaselessly communicate data about us. It is easy to calculate our vulnerabilities—to find our most probable states.

Data collection can become the structure of unfree politics.”

p 91.

Timothy Snyder is not easy reading. Yet I find in these most uncertain times that he well repays my efforts. Try Timothy Snyder, I suggest, and see what you think.

Timothy Snyder concludes:

“My idea of freedom involves creating the conditions for good fortune for as many people as possible. And then, within the expansive frontiers of a shared borderland of the unpredictable, we thrill to the elevating grace of the individual,”

p 285.

About Dr. Jo Ann Lordahl

Dr. Jo Ann Lordahl is a lifelong author, poet, novelist, and speaker whose work explores empowerment, aging with grace, and the deep questions that define our lives. Her books and reflections — from historical fiction to meditations on creative living — encourage resilience, reflection, and positive transformation.

If this post stirs questions about moral courage, shared humanity, or the work of healing in hard times, consider exploring Dr. Lordahl’s writing — especially her essays and books on reflection and personal transformation. Her voice reminds us that even in upheaval, there is a path toward patience, insight, and compassionate action.