How to Lose a Country is a warning to the world that populism and nationalism don't march fully-formed into government; they creep.

Award-winning author and journalist Ece Temelkuran identifies the early warning signs of this phenomenon, sprouting up across the world from Eastern Europe to South America, in order to arm the reader with the tools to recognise it and take action.

Weaving memoir, history and clear-sighted argument, Temelkuran proposes alternative answers to the pressing - and too often paralysing - political questions of our time. How to Lose a Country is an exploration of the insidious ideas at the core of these movements and an urgent, eloquent defence of democracy.

This 2024 edition includes a new foreword by the author.

"Highly readable and vibrates with outrage" - * The Times *

"How to Lose a Country is a succinct and hard-hitting explainer on the rise of populism in Turkey and elsewhere, with a running refrain to western nations that consider themselves free from the threat of authoritarianism: this can happen to you" - * Financial Times *

"This book is a fierce mapping of the preceding stages of dissolution. It begins with the creation of populist movements. [ . . . ] The intensity of the call for political engagement and the fluency of expression make this an urgent read. Those looking for such steadfastness should begin here" - * Irish Times *