I highly recommend Timothy Snyder's Bloodlands, if you have the stomach for it. It's an absolutely brutal book that made me appreciate truly liberal democratic governance, for all its many flaws. Things could get so much worse, and often do, under autocrats, even in our current world. Even if they don't quite match the suffering of Belarus, Poland and Ukraine under the power of autocrats.
When I was younger I never had the patience to learn from history. Now that most of my life is about understanding people rather than understanding code, I can't get enough history.
When I was younger I never had the patience to learn from history. Now that most of my life is about understanding people rather than understanding code, I can't get enough history.