Find your danger!

Save talks and create a schedule to help you organise your festival experience.

Start here:

Your Plan
Cart
Your cart is empty
Subtotal
$0
Discount
$0
Booking Fee
$0
Total
$0
You must purchase tickets to a minimum of 3 different paid sessions to complete your Festival Multipack. Learn More
You must add paid tickets to your cart to qualify for Whole Glory. Learn More

Help us stay dangerous.

FODI is only made possible thanks to the support of our donors and donations. Your support will enable us to keep FODI going.

If you have any questions about contributing, please contact us

We acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation - the custodians of the country in which we meet - and acknowledge their Elders, past and present.
Stay Up To Date
Get the latest content and events from the Festival of Dangerous Ideas and The Ethics Centre

The Future is History

Masha Gessen
Chaired by Matt Bevan
Sat 4 April 5:00pm Lower Town Hall
Sat 4 April 5:00pm Lower Town Hall
Russia appears to again be playing the villain role, so what does Putin have planned for the world in 2020 and the US elections?

The end of the Cold War was supposed to be a story of unalloyed triumph for the West. Even those who didn’t go as far as declaring ‘the end of history’ saw it as a turning point, hoping a new global order would emerge with a more democratic Russia and a Europe free from the threat of Soviet totalitarianism. Although there was some transformation in Russia after the Iron Curtain fell, it seems it couldn’t let go for long. Election meddling, assassinations, military incursions – since Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000, the deep state has re-emerged and old enemies are again facing off with Russia’s autocratic leadership. As the country stalks its neighbours and taunts the world, does it know any other way? Has Russia’s future been stolen by its past, destined to always be the villain the West loves to hate?

Masha Gessen

Masha Gessen is a journalist and the author of ten books of nonfiction, most recently The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia, which won the 2017 National Book Award for Nonfiction. Gessen is also the author of the national bestseller The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin (2012). A staff writer at The New Yorker and the recipient of numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Carnegie Fellowship, Gessen teaches at Amherst College, and lives in New York City.

More
‘Half of the population is behind bars and the other half is guarding them,’ Russians have said of their country since the times of Stalin.
Masha Gessen