Anne is a staff writer for The Atlantic and a Pulitzer-prize winning historian. A Washington Post columnist for fifteen years and a former member of the editorial board, she has also worked as the foreign and deputy editor of the Spectator, and as the political editor of the Evening Standard. Her book, The Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism, considers why some of Anne’s contemporaries have abandoned liberal democratic ideals in favour of strongman cults, nationalist movements, or one-party states.
Anne Applebaum is a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, journalist, and commentator, who offers vital insights into global, political and economic shifts, blending world history with the current political landscape. Leveraging her European expertise and extensive reporting, she dissects pressing global events, addressing misinformation, propaganda, and geopolitical challenges.
Renowned for "Gulag: A History" and "Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine," she's the only two-time recipient of the Duff Cooper Prize. Her other works include "Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1946" and her most recent work, "Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism," a New York Times best-seller - as well as one of Barack Obama’s favourite reads of 2021. She has a particular expertise in the history of communist and post-communist Europe.
Recognized for her journalistic excellence, Anne received the ICFJ’s Excellence in International Reporting Award and the Francisco Cerecedo journalism award. She is a Senior Fellow of International Affairs and Agora Fellow in Residence at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC. She also directed the Transitions Forum at the Legatum Institute, co-founded the Democracy Lab, and served as an adjunct fellow at the Centre for European Policy Analysis. She is a current staff writer at The Atlantic, and has been a contributor to Foreign Affairs, the New Republic, and The New York Review of Books, and was formerly a member of The Washington Post’s editorial board; foreign and deputy editor of the Spectator magazine; and political editor of the Evening Standard.
From Syrian refugees to Putin’s disinformation narratives, the EU, and the European financial crises to responding to terrorism, solutions to transition-government corruption to political populists’ game-changing campaign language, Anne provides vital context and up-to-the-minute insights into how the latest world events could shape our future.