Portrait of Timothy Snyder
Center-left · Thinker or writer · Active today

Timothy Snyder

American historian

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A Yale historian of Eastern Europe and the Holocaust who wrote On Tyranny, a short guide to defending democracy against authoritarian drift.

Timothy Snyder sits in the left-libertarian part of the Caucus economy and liberty compass: slightly state-led and leaning libertarian. The clearest positions are leaning libertarian on liberty and authority, leaning institutional on institutions and leaning progressive on culture. The profile is close to the middle on war and peace.

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Where Timothy Snyder sits on ten dimensions

Each scale runs from one pole to the other, and the dot shows the overall tendency of this person's record and public life. These are simplified estimates and open to debate.

💰EconomySlightly state-led
State-ledFree market
⚖️Liberty and authorityLeaning libertarian
LibertarianAuthoritarian
🎭CultureLeaning progressive
ProgressiveTraditional
🌍NationLeaning globalist
GlobalistNationalist
🌱EnvironmentSlightly nature-first
Growth-firstNature-first
🤖TechnologySlightly tech-cautious
Tech-cautiousTech-optimist
🕊️War and peaceCentered on war and peace
Peace-firstStrength-first
🏛️InstitutionsLeaning institutional
Anti-establishmentInstitutional
🙏ReligionSlightly secular
SecularReligious
🛡️InterventionismLeaning interventionist
Non-interventionistInterventionist

People most like Timothy Snyder

Isaiah Berlin British philosopher and historian, 1909 to 199799%Jonathan Haidt American social psychologist and author99%Nelson Mandela President of South Africa, 1994 to 199998%Geoffrey Hinton British-Canadian computer scientist98%Yoshua Bengio Canadian computer scientist98%Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya Belarusian opposition leader98%John Rawls American philosopher, 1921 to 200298%Cyril Ramaphosa President of South Africa, 2018 to present98%

People furthest from Timothy Snyder

Jair Bolsonaro President of Brazil, 2019 to 202218%Benito Mussolini Prime Minister of Italy, 1922 to 194319%Adolf Hitler Chancellor and Führer of Germany, 1933 to 194520%Donald Trump US President, 2017 to 2021 and 2025 to present20%

Political views closest to Timothy Snyder

Civic republicanismValues citizen participation, civic virtue and freedom from domination, and often…98%Social democracyKeeps a market economy but adds strong public services, unions and progressive taxes to…97%Social liberalismDefends individual rights and open societies while backing public services and equal…97%Third Way centrismCombines market economics with moderate social policy and pragmatic problem solving.96%

Read more about Timothy Snyder

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Biographies of Timothy SnyderBooks on civic republicanism

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Percentages show how close two profiles are across all ten dimensions. Including a person here is for study and comparison, not approval. Portrait: Jindřich Nosek (NoJin), CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons; see all photo credits.