'It couldn't happen here.' Ece Temelkuran heard reasonable people in Britain say it the night of the Brexit vote. She heard reasonable people in America say it the night Trump's election was soundtracked by chants of 'Build that wall.' She heard reasonable people in Turkey say it as Erdoan rigged elections, rebuilt the economy around cronyism, and labelled his opposition as terrorists. How to Lose a Country is an plea, a warning to the world that populism and nationalism don't march fully-formed into government; they creep. Ece Temelkuran, identifies the early-warning signs of this phenomenon, sprouting up across the world from Eastern Europe to South America, in order to define a global pattern, and arm the reader with the tools to root it out. Proposing alternative, global answers to the pressing -- and too often paralysing -- political questions of our time, Temelkuran explores the idea of 'real people', the infantilisation of language and debate, the way laughter can prove a false friend, and the dangers of underestimating one's opponent.