. >> winston churchill lamented to his daughter that tonight the sun goes down on more suffering than ever before in the world. torn asunder by seven bloody years of war in 10 million

killed. ready about the victims of that era from the soviet union soon the genocidal and ideological ambitions left permanent scars in the heart of europe. and in the knee york review of books but the latest but copies of which are available of the tumultuous populist experience.

and of the democratic collapse to a leash murder on the go. and as the spoiler alert to standout the personification that more than we commemorate in this library. and then forced tiller to change plans. and in order every you may do we shall fight on and then the native of ohio says the doctor from lot oxford. and author between europe

been stolen. remarkable research with these and other books were translated into 11 languages. with a permanent fellow of the institute of sciences and our guests has kindly agreed and those with questions should approach the microphone but writing a provocative book i hope we can begin that debate this evening. ladies and gentlemen. [applause] >> thank you for this kind

introduction. when i hear the word provocative i think it is common sense the best description of the world is changing it is a very short book to be a manifesto, a declaration of life think and also a manual. to put it in your pocket or your purse about what to do

with uh precarious situation and why one wants to make head difference it is very much a book how to go through your day but then this may day-to-day whether we like it not to sit this personages provocative so this is a departure will not fit in your pocket but if it

cannot be read in a sitting. is a departure in that way but as michael was kind enough 2.0 i am from the united states. but the better part to the of my adult life at the very these to learn the languages before these places. it is just like watching a baseball game. with us certain cost with historiography with the

particular price to spend thousands of hours for those who experienced political atrocity but we will seize some of the things that arise from the cost to reap the benefit of a certain amount of wisdom about what i have learned that is relevant to the president of the united states because i am american whether you like a bird not the you can imagine it is right in front of you regardless. you can imagine it is not there but it is there. one does not become a historian with uh bit of

apprenticeships met my doctoral supervisor that we now call a child survivor of holocaust and managed to survive also imprisoned because the examiner was someone who lost his position as the refugee and people who i admired and those dissidents one of the things they must do as an

intellectual is to understand that political world. either reverse or through the writings is a turning point in hillers rise to power but what i am trying to say but i am also and in reality than that third source as well of these atrocities that he was kind enough to mention the people

that our younger than me. but this is all about you. but whether you like it not this is where we are. so since 1989 many of the transitions this is a nonsense word will lease to call democratic transitions are reversible or ceasing to be that before our lives. so to be part of the life of

the people born in the 1990's and from them what it is like to protest is from the younger generation if they were beaten or imprisoned and it is also from the bedrock those lessons of some of that experience so are try to learn in all these ways to pass on that we might need urgently. so what i can say with confidence of domestic regime change that they cease to be republics.

and then to summarize in a very brief way but what i take to the obvious and is very simple. that it can happen the germans in 1932 with those everyday life with the same statement as it can have been here. so the burden is on you to build up your exceptional is some but as for me when i travel in europe in the

people the say and there is american i can learn something from. [laughter] that is guns level little bounce in my step but nobody is looking into me for any kind of example. [laughter] and it will be a long time before that never comes back. it can happen here but the second point it happens to people like us there is nothing about us or the habits from the destabilization of democratic institutions and people like us is very important so i am put in

touch with the few human beings with traumatic changes with the same kind of problems than that is not real. and we're not smarter or wiser i'm happy to take a random cross-section of those lectures they probably would have read more with walter attention spans. [laughter] you know, what i'm talking about. [laughter] the young people are like what is it attention span and? pusan i remember when i had one.

[laughter] so they could culturally perform in ways that we couldn't but there is no particular reason to think and that is the terms of the book but objectively and undeniably that this fellow was nothing they did not have the ability to learn we can if we choose to one thing the book is about is returning to some of the things we is to understand. the third day is it happened fast it takes between one and three years to carry out a regime unchanged like a chemical reaction you cannot

undo that the sexual this very interested in the defense of chemical reactions and a physical reaction that is like baking a cake if you bake the cake you cannot go back to the ingredients the weather regime changes will not go back and then there is a war that takes between one and three years and that means it is already a underway which means you have to act quickly but how does it happen fast? by appearing not to happen that all but reducing the way your experience the confusion and that is in all happen today so to go through that over and over

again it happens fast by making use slow and this is very simple but also very important people who wish to change the world for better or worse with those people are out there. is one of the great mistakes to think whether he is a version of the democrat but there are different views of what politics should be like some of those are in the white house. that vision of a different future isn't just a matter to turn the dial know is

this the different dial a completely different relationship so one has to try to understand and be in the position to say my everyday life corresponds but look at the communist takeover or the revolution i remember there are people with very different ideas making the world of very different place sielaff to except the blueprint but they do have a blueprint to a different building it isn't a question if the

carpet is orange or what but what type of political structure? so the catalyst and the lubricant that makes it go so quickly is mistrust confusion and mistrust but what you might take as normal the has to be trust because what you call democracy depends upon the rule of law. then there will not be ways to make sure the then democracy is just a ritual that is the way most regime changes happen.

nobody ever stand up to say i am getting rid of democracy no. each one is just less meaningful. the new claim that it is legitimate sale have to have trust that major don't actually have to invoke the law but here's where things get interesting the other has to be facts you don't have to agree with them but think that the facts are out there so we can do that to gather it is possible we would come to a similar conclusion if there is general mistrust and things

happen very fast so the whole business of the alternative fax the relentless exhaustive pursuit is not a curiosity like getting at the heart of democracy if we get into a world i have my opinion did you have your opinion and then read decide there is a world there is what makes things go faster. so the last thing is that people's actions really do

matter with the regime change that takes place where they think about how they will adjust the were cast to be done by the population. so then imagine the all-powerful. there cannot be the all-powerful state. as everybody bears a certain amount of responsibility that is what this book is my attempt to do the one small thing i'm trying to make the case that history is helpful so i will put on my

blindfold that when i wrote the book the inauguration had not happened. so the things that are in the book that i now read because history did not give me any intuition about the structures. / lib like to read a couple parts in the first one is less than one. to characterize the arrival also with the regime change is what they're living right now most of the power of

authoritarian is the ms really given to think ahead with the word ' present government will want that offer themselves without being asked teaching power what it can do that igo through the examples like to close of akia - - czechoslovakia's. but dissolve chandra of the psychological experiment and then if they carry designer making money it is reality television then did is legal. so we started in the building at yale but they

thought that there must be something like that in germany and he wanted to test it he tested it on yale students and he set up an experiment in which he told people that they should apply electric shock to another person on the other side of the window is actually a confederate who was in on it but what he learned when he would something that made him look like a scientist in kept telling them to turn up the level of electricity he learned in that situation and artificially constructed situation with the authority figure they would not only

shocked to the point they were screaming in pain of heart failure most people would keep shocking and told the other person appeared to die. at the command of the authority figure and his conclusion was i realized in the and we have to go to germany. that problem is universal look around for the authority figures and then we have to as social creatures some involve drastic changes where just doing nothing is doing a lot

just top and just recognize the moment for what it is you have already done a lot which leads me to the second lesson. i will confess one of the attractions of this lecture is at the churchill library and he does indeed figure into the book a few look indulge me i will read this lesson. the eighth lesson in the book that title is standout someone has to. is easy to follow along but without that there is no freedom remember rosa parks

the moment you set an example others will follow and i will read at some length the churchill extract after the second world war europeans and others in the 1930's the attitudes for accommodation and admiration most europeans have made their peace with the power of r.o.t.c. germany influential germans such as lindbergh opposed such as america first considered in centric those off did not change from the world around them for military today. numerous european states had abandoned democracy to become the first fashion

state in 1922 and then with the promise of the territory none of the great powers from germany or austria the great powers led by neville chamberlain and in december december 1939 the red army joined them going forward. said germany was supplied with food and fuel from the spring of 1940 they were evacuated from the continent and when churchill became prime minister great britain was alone with no important

ally is not the germany in the soviet allies that had invaded finland beginning with the bombing of helsinki the soviet union occupied lithuania adolf hitler indeed imagined a division of the world expected churchill to come to terms after the fall of france he told the french would of been need to do we shall fight for ever and ever in june told the british parliament began the bombing of the british cities totaled later called the air campaign of which i have the

honor to express to help the of british define themselves brother politicians would turn this opinions into for property for