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EDITORIAL. Freedom and democracy are daily battles. With “Democracies against authoritarian empires” (L’Observatoire), Nicolas Baverez beats the clock.
By Franz-Olivier Giesbert
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But where is the world going? while Russia rediscovers the totalitarian hubris of yesteryear and China feels its imperial wings sprouting? Openly threatened, in the long term, by these two mega-tyrannies, will our democracies continue to let themselves be eaten away as if by metastases by radical individualism, self-hatred and the loss of the sense of the general interest?
“The usual fault of man is not to foresee the storm in good weather”, observed Machiavelli. This is a blemish that our friend Nicolas Baverez is not afflicted with. As a good disciple of Raymond Aron, he knows, on the contrary, that History is tragic, as his new book shows, Democracies versus authoritarian empires (1).
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