Freedom: interview with Timothy Snyder

• Date: 25 January
• label.tijd 12:00 - 13:00
• Location: Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 1

World-famous historian and author of books on tyranny and the history of Eastern Europe ('Bloodlands', 'Black Earth') about his new book 'On Freedom'.

-- English spoken --

Historian Timothy Snyder is world famous for his books on tyranny and Eastern Europe. His latest book is about how freedom is at stake. On Saturday afternoon, January 25, 2025, Sophie Derkzen will interview him at the Writers Unlimited International Literature Festival in The Hague about his book On Freedom.

On Freedom is the equally brilliant and highly topical new book by the famous Yale historian and author of, among others, the bestsellers Bloodlands and On Tyranny.

What is freedom? Why is our freedom in danger? And why is freedom our only chance to survive? Freedom is the core of our Western world, the heart of our democracy, but we have lost sight of what it means, with crisis as a result.

Too many people see freedom as the absence of state power. We think we are free when we can do and say what we want and are hindered as little as possible by the government. But true freedom is not so much freedom from as freedom to thrive, to risk things for a future we choose and build together.

Timothy Snyder is a leading international historian specializing in Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, and the Holocaust. The professor of history at Yale University has published influential studies. His major books include Nationalism, Marxism, and Modern Central Europe: A Biography of Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz (1998); The Red Prince: The End of a Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Europe (2008); Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (2010); Thinking the Twentieth Century (with Tony Judt, 2012); Black Earth: A History of the Holocaust (2015); On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons on the Twentieth Century (2017); and The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America (2018) and the highly topical On Freedom (2024).

Sophie Derkzen is a journalist and radio presenter with a fascination for international politics and culture. On NPO Radio 1 she presents for the VPRO Bureau Buitenland, awarded the Silver Reiss Microphone for the best radio program of the year in 2022. She made the podcasts Stad in Oorlog: Kharkiv een jaar onder vuur (winner of the Silver Reiss Microphone 2023) and Generatie Merkel (4**** in de Volkskrant).

Interview with Timothy Snyder was compiled for Writers Unlimited Festival by Ilonka Reintjens.

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