“This is the hour of Europe — but do the Europeans even know it?”
This year’s A Speech to Europe by prominent historian and author Anne Applebaum explores whether now is “the European Moment” and what that means. While systems of repression, coercion, and authoritarian control were once considered anomalies in the West, they are now re-emerging as increasingly viable models of society and government. In this unraveling global order, what are the choices Europe will face? How will those choices be shaped by its 20th-century history? Can the old continent offer itself as a credible alternative to the return of old ideas? Anne Applebaum argues that the answers to these questions will not only influence Europe’s trajectory, but the fate of the world.
Anne Applebaum is a prize-winning historian, a staff writer for The Atlantic, and a senior fellow at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. Her history books include Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine (London: Allen Lane, 2017), Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-1956 (London: Allen Lane, 2012), and Gulag: A History of Soviet Camps (London: Allen Lane, 2003), which won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction. Her most recent books are the New York Times bestsellers Twilight of Democracy (New York: Doubleday, 2020), an essay on democracy and authoritarianism, and Autocracy Inc: The Dictators Who Want to Rule the World (New York: Doubleday, 2024). She was a Washington Post columnist for fifteen years and a member of the editorial board. She has also been the deputy editor of The Spectator and a columnist for several British newspapers.
