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In his book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, American author, historian and academic Timothy Snyder makes provocative and unsettling comparisons between today's politics and the rise of the Third Reich and suggests how we can avoid the terrible mistakes of the past.

On a visit to Dublin last month he spoke to Hugh Linehan about the themes of his book, the changes unfolding in US society under the Trump administration and why the future of Western society could end up looking like Russia's present.

Prof Snyder is the author of several award-winning books including The Red Prince: The Secret Lives of a Habsburg Archduke, Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, and Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning.