Anne Applebaum Keynote Speaker

  • Expert on International Affairs and Foreign Policy, Staff Writer for The Atlantic
  • Pulitzer Prize winning, NYT Best Selling Author
  • Senior Fellow of the Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University

Anne Applebaum's Biography

Pulitzer Prize winning historian, journalist, commentator on geopolitics and acclaimed keynote, Anne Applebaum examines the challenges and opportunities of global political and economic change through the lenses of world history and the contemporary political landscape.

Informed by her expertise in Europe and her years of international reporting, Applebaum shares perspectives on, and the far-reaching implications of, today’s volatile world events. And as technology allows a new scale of media manipulation to authoritarian governments and changes the tenor of political discourse, she scrutinizes the misinformation, propaganda, and criminal exploitation that influence global affairs, as well.

From Syrian refugees to Putin’s disinformation narratives, from the EU and the European financial crises to responding to terrorism, from solutions to transition-government corruption to political populists’ game-changing campaign language, Applebaum provides both background and up-to-the-minute insights that are vital to understanding the risks and opportunities of today’s world political and economic climate.

Anne’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Gulag: A History is about the Soviet concentration camps. Her book, Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine, is the winner of her second Duff Cooper Prize and the 28th Lionel Gelber Prize 2018. In it, Anne proves what many suspected: Stalin set out to destroy the Ukrainian peasantry. Anne is the only author to win the Duff Cooper Prize twice. Her other books include Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1946, which won a Cundill Prize for Historical Literature, and Between East and West: Across the Borderlands of Europe (updated edition published in 2023).

In 2021, Anne was awarded the ICFJ’s Excellence in International Reporting Award.  Also in 2021, Anne was presented with the 38th ‘Francisco Cerecedo’ journalism award. by King Felipe VI of Spain.

Penguin published ‘Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism” in 2020.  In this book, she outlines with great eloquence why elites in democracies around the world are turning towards nationalism and authoritarianism. The book became an immediate NYT best-seller in the non-fiction section.  Barack Obama listed this book as one of his favourite reads of the year.

In mid 2024, her new book ‘Autocracy, Inc: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World‘ will be published by Penguin.

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.

Director of the Transitions Forum at the Legatum Institute from 2011-2015, an international think tank, Applebaum is the co-founder of the institute’s Democracy Lab, an online partnership between the institute and Foreign Policy magazine. An adjunct fellow of the Center for European Policy Analysis, she is former Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs at the London School of Economics.

For many years, Applebaum wrote a biweekly foreign affairs column for The Washington Post which is syndicated internationally. She is now a staff writer at The Atlantic. She has been a contributor to Foreign Affairs, the New Republic and The New York Review of Books. She 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 1988 – 1991 she covered the collapse of communism as Warsaw correspondent for The Economist.

Anne attended Yale University and was a Marshall Scholar at the London School of Economics and St. Antony’s College, Oxford.

 

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Anne Applebaum's Speaking Topics

  • • Geopolitical risk, regionally and globally

  • • US-European relations; how attitudes towards one another are evolving

  • • Democracy and the rule of law

  • • Disinformation, fake news – threats to democracy globally

  • • Politics and economics of Russia, Ukraine and Central Europe

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Videos of Anne Applebaum

Anne Applebaum on Lessons and Warnings on Authoritarianism | Upfront Summit 2022
Anne Applebaum on Lessons and Warnings on Authoritarianism | Upfront Summit 2022
Brexit, Fake News & Trade Wars– Geopolitical Risk Check
Brexit, Fake News & Trade Wars– Geopolitical Risk Check
How to Fix Democracy
How to Fix Democracy
IRON CURTAIN
IRON CURTAIN
 Penn State McCourtney Institute for Democracy | Anne Applebaum: Twilight of Democracy
Penn State McCourtney Institute for Democracy | Anne Applebaum: Twilight of Democracy

Articles, Media & Podcasts

Books by Anne Applebaum

Autocracy, Inc: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World (2024)
Twilight of Democracy - The Failure of Politics and the Parting of Friends
Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine
Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-56

Comments & Testimonials

Just a quick note to say that Anne did a wonderful job yesterday and the session was a resounding success. Her insights were totally on point and there was such a wealth of questions from the audience – we didn’t even have time for them all – which is always a really positive sign.
UK Asset management firm
She was OUTSTANDING. Truly incredible ...She's got a standing invitation to join whenever she'd like.
Corporate Membership Association - US
Anne — I want to thank you for speaking at our UK Conference yesterday. We had around 120 clients present and the feedback thus far has been overwhelmingly positive. Your content got them asking questions and talking about it afterwards! We could not have asked for more
The event went well and Anne Applebaum was our most highly rated speaker to date
From a leading financial services client
We so enjoyed your insightful comments and depth of knowledge of history as well paths forward through our current challenging times of disinformation, conflict and unabashed aggression. Your discussion of constructive speech, supported by innovative alternatives to censorship, was a brilliant roadmap towards increasing responsible free speech.
Association Event - US
We would like to take this opportunity to thank Anne for her contribution to this year's theme and event as a whole! She played a major role in inspiring us and our guests. It was a pleasure to experience her as a speaker.
Major Economic Conference

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