Sunday Books and Culture - Nonfiction
Penny Parrish reviews Michael McFaul’s “Autocrats vs. Democrats”; an informative and insightful book about the United States’ relationship with Russia and China.
AUTOCRATS VS. DEMOCRATS
by MICHAEL McFAUL
Hardcover $35.00
Audiobook $22.00
Published by Mariner Books, October 28, 2025
Reviewed by Penny A Parrish
You probably will not find this book on a shelf at the White House. If you are a fan of President Trump, you will not like this book. But whether or not you are a fan, you ought to read it.
McFaul was Ambassador to Russia under President Obama. He breaks his book into three parts: the past, the present, and the future relationships between Russia, China, and the United States.
When the Cold War ended in 1991, The United States was the world power, a democracy to be envied and copied by many other countries. Thirty years later, our place in the world is being challenged by Russia, China, and other countries.
Chapters on our past relationship with Russia include details on time with the tsars, when that regime benefitted from our newly formed government. Catherine the Great, for example, believed that good relations with the Colonies would provide benefits in trade and keep Europe at bay. The Bolshevik Revolution changed that. Not until FDR did diplomatic relations between the two countries resume.
Hopes were high with Gorbachev but dashed again with Putin. Russia and the US have been on, and continue to be on, a seesaw.
China also had periods of cooperation with the US. Beginning in the late 18th century, China was a regional powerhouse, and the US a weak startup. But the “Century of Humiliation” reduced China’s power through population explosions, crooked bureaucrats, and financial disasters.
The Communist regime of Mao in 1949, “mobilized peasants, not workers…the opposite of the Moscow model.” As their economy grew, tensions often appeared between China and the US due to incidents like Tiananmen Square and questions about the origin of the COVID virus.
While the chapters on history are enlightening, it is in looking at where we are now, and making suggestions for the future, that McFaul shines. He studies power, regimes, and leaders and lays much of the blame for our current situation at the feet of Trump.
Fawning over Putin, challenging NATO and longtime allies, and undermining the basic foundations of our democracy and heritage weaken, not strengthen, our place in the new world order. He argues that we need to continue working together in many areas (education, science, innovation like AI) and decouple in areas that threaten our democracy (surveillance and election interference).
This was a well-researched book, and a long one. It took me a few weeks to get through it because it is so dense with ideas and information. But in the end, here is the most important message I took from this book: “The threat from within the United States could very well metastasize into a greater threat to American security than either China or Russia.” Between the government shutdown, the firing of federal workers, the expunging of our history, and the NO KINGS marches, we may be heading down that path already.
Penny A Parrish is a local writer and photographer. See her pictures.
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