Anne Applebaum was born in 1964 in Washington DC. She is an author, journalist, historian and senior fellow at Johns Hopkins University. Her non-fiction book Gulag: A History won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 2004.
What’s your earliest memory?
The smell of the pine needles in the back garden of my grandparents’ house in Houston, Texas. My earliest political memory is Nixon’s resignation: I was told to come and watch it on television, because “this would be part of history”.
What book last changed your thinking?
Bernard Bailyn’s The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Among other things, it helped me understand the importance of conspiracy theories, a core element of American political life from the very beginning.
What would be your Mastermind specialist subject?
Show tunes. I know all the words to all the songs in My Fair Lady, Oklahoma, Fiddler on the Roof, and a handful of others. Also, I can recite all of the prepositions, and there are more than you think.
Who are your heroes?
My childhood hero was Nancy Drew, the world’s most famous fictional teenage sleuth. My adult hero is Anna Bondarenko, who is in her late twenties, lives in Odesa and, together with a group of other extremely young people, runs an organisation that has helped mobilise tens of thousands of volunteers.
Which political figure do you look up to?
Józef Piłsudski, because he defeated the Red Army in 1920.
In which time and place, other than your own, would you like to live?
Philadelphia, 1787, during the Constitutional Convention. Just to hear the conversation.
Who would paint your portrait?
If he would do it, John Singer Sargent.
What’s your theme tune?
“Tom’s Diner” by Suzanne Vega. The hook gets stuck in my head.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
“Learn to write quickly, or you won’t be able to go out to dinner with your friends.” I followed it.
Which TV show can you not live without?
The French series Le Bureau. It’s about French secret agents, but also about a lot more than that: secrets, lies and French foreign policy. It was my favourite show and I hope they’ll resurrect it some day for a new season.
What’s currently bugging you?
Our failure as a culture to regulate social media algorithms. It can be done, we just don’t have the political will.
What single thing would make your life better?
The Russian army’s departure from Ukraine will mean that my friends are safe, Europe is safe, the autocratic network is weakened, and everyone on the front line can go home. Also, I will once again be able to sleep at night.
When were you happiest?
The day I biked alongside the canals outside Can Tho, Vietnam.
In another life, what job might you have chosen?
I would be an archaeologist, working somewhere near the Mediterranean, focused resolutely on the very distant past.
Are we all doomed?
Pessimism is irresponsible.
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This article appears in the 17 Jul 2024 issue of the New Statesman, The American Berserk