The Origins of Totalitarianism
by Hannah Arendt
List Price:
Our Price: $9.99
You Save: $9.01 (47%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $5.91 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Hannah ArendtEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1973-03-21
ISBN: 0156701537
Number of pages: 576
Publisher: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich
Book Reviews of The Origins of Totalitarianism
Book Review: The foundational study of totalitarianism.
Summary: 5 Stars
Over half a century after its original publication, "The Origins of Totalitarianism" is still the most important treatise on totalitarianism in government. Arendt's book is also just as relevant and important today as it was in the mid-20th Century.
The book is divided into three main sections: Antisemitism, Imperialism, and Totalitarianism. In the first section, Arendt tracks the rise of antisemitism in Europe, looking mainly at 19th Century events and situations that aided the spread of this phenomenon through European culture. The Dreyfus Affair, which sharply divided France and ultimately became a political battle between antisemites and their opponents at the end of the 19th Century, gets more attention than any other event in this chapter.
In the middle section on imperialism, Arendt shows how the rise and fall of the continental European imperialist movements of the 19th Century (mainly, Pan-Germanism and Pan-Slavism) helped set the stage for their 20th Century totalitarian successors. As she puts it in opening the chapter on "the Pan Movements": "Nazism and Bolshevism owe more to Pan-Germanism and Pan-Slavism (respectively) than to any other ideology or political movement. This is most evident in foreign politics, where the strategies of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia have followed so closely the well-known programs of conquest outlined by the pan-movements before and during the first World War that totalitarian aims have frequently been mistaken for the pursuance of some permanent German or Russian interests. While neither Hitler nor Stalin has ever acknowledged his debt to imperialism in the development of his methods of rule, neither has hesitated to admit his indebtedness to the pan-movements' ideology or to imitate their slogans." It's a testament to the truth and prescience of Arendt's work that the preceding passage remains as timely as ever, given the ongoing collapse of the Pan-Arabist movement which dominated the Middle East during the second half of the 20th Century and the battle between democracy and totalitarian Islamofascism over which will rise up next.
The first two sections lead perfectly into the third and most important part of the book: the section on totalitarianism. Arendt shows how Nazism and Bolshevism were much more similar in their goals, practices, ideologies, and enemies than many people often believe or want to admit. They were both mass movements that sprang from cultures that had largely dismissed any objective truths. (Arendt: "The ideal subject of totalitarianism is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist.") Both movements sought power for the sake of power, were rigidly ideological, made widespread use of terror, sought not only to punish and kill their enemies (as many brutal governments before them had done) but to dehumanize them and erase any trace of their existence from the memories of the governments' other subjects, a phenomenon introduced to the world by these 20th Century totalitarian governments.
Many people have said in the decades since the Holocaust and the Soviet Gulag that the world should never let these atrocities happen again. But the sad irony is that many of these same people then promote a materialist, existentialist worldview that are the breeding grounds for the same radical totalitarian governments that ultimately carry out these atrocities. Arendt recognized this problem: "...We actually have nothing to fall back on in order to understand a phenomenon that nevertheless confronts us with its overpowering reality and breaks down all standards we know. There is only one thing that seems to be discernible: we may say that radical evil has emerged in connection with a system in which all men have become equally superfluous. The manipulators of this system believe in their own superfluousness as much as in that of all others, and the totalitarian murderers are all the more dangerous because they do not care if they themselves are alive or dead, if they ever lived or never were born... Totalitarian solutions may well survive the fall of totalitarian regimes in the form of strong temptations which will come up whenever it seems impossible to alleviate political, social, or economic misery in a manner worthy of man."
So where do we go from here? "Never again?" I'd love to think so, but I'm not betting on it. I don't think Hannah Arendt would either.
Summary of The Origins of Totalitarianism
Hannah Arendt's definitive work on totalitarianism and an essential component of any study of twentieth-century political history
The Origins of Totalitarianism begins with the rise of anti-Semitism in central and western Europe in the 1800s and continues with an examination of European colonial imperialism from 1884 to the outbreak of World War I. Arendt explores the institutions and operations of totalitarian movements, focusing on the two genuine forms of totalitarian government in our time?Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia?which she adroitly recognizes were two sides of the same coin, rather than opposing philosophies of Right and Left. From this vantage point, she discusses the evolution of classes into masses, the role of propaganda in dealing with the nontotalitarian world, the use of terror, and the nature of isolation and loneliness as preconditions for total domination.
History Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in History Books
The Bad Guys Won! A Season of Brawling, Boozing, Bimbo-chasing, and Championship Baseball with Straw, Doc, Mookie, Nails, The Kid, and the Rest of the 1986 Mets, the Rowdiest Team Ever to Put on a New York Uniform--and Maybe the Bestby Jeff Pearlman
Harper; Published: 2004; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $26.79
The Path to Powerby Margaret Thatcher
Harpercollins; Published: 1995-06; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $6.97
Price in other shops:
Bodyguard of Liesby Anthony Cave Brown
Harpercollins; Published: 1975-10; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $70.00
Disaster! The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906by Dan Kurzman
Harper Perennial; Published: 2002-04-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.00
General Patton: A Soldier's Lifeby Stanley Hirshson
Harper; Published: 2002-08-06; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $6.94
Price in other shops:
Founding Mothers CDby Cokie Roberts
HarperAudio; Published: 2004-04-13; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $50.98
Born for Liberty: A History of Women in Americaby Sara M. Evans
Free Pr; Published: 1989-05; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $11.75
Price in other shops:
The Complete Idiot's Guide(R) to the Crusadesby Paul Williams, Paul L. Williams
Alpha; Published: 2001-10-18; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.87
Price in other shops:
The CAGEby Ruth Minsky Sender
Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing; Published: 1986-10-31; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $50.00
The Transfer Agreement: The Untold Story of the Secret Pact Between the Third Reich & Jewish Palestineby Edwin Black
Scribner; Published: 1984-05-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $49.95
Similar Books and other products
Language, Truth and Logicby Alfred J. Ayer, Sir Alfred Jules Ayer
Dover Publications; Published: 1952-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.68
Price in other shops:
Selected Writingsby Karl Marx
Hackett Pub Co; Published: 1994-03-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.00
Price in other shops:
Nietzsche: 'On the Genealogy of Morality' and Other Writings: Revised Student Edition (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought)by Friedrich Nietzsche
Cambridge University Press; Published: 2006-10-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.00
Price in other shops:
Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Moralsby David Hume
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1975-06-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $17.97
Price in other shops:
Critique of Pure Reason (The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant)by Immanuel Kant
Cambridge University Press; Published: 1999-02-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $27.00
Price in other shops:
Madame Bovary (Penguin Classics)by Gustave Flaubert
Penguin Classics; Published: 2002-12-31; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.69
Price in other shops:
Faust: Part One (Oxford World's Classics) (Pt. 1)by J. W. von Goethe
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2008-07-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.55
Price in other shops:
Democracy in Americaby Alexis de Tocqueville
University Of Chicago Press; Published: 2002-04-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.99
Price in other shops:
Perpetual Peace, and Other Essays on Politics, History, and Morals (HPC Classics Series)by Immanuel Kant
Hackett Pub Co; Published: 1983-02-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.99
Price in other shops:
The Human Condition (2nd Edition)by Hannah Arendt
University Of Chicago Press; Published: 1998-12-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.99
Price in other shops: