The Origins of Totalitarianism

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Hannah Arendt's definitive work on totalitarianism—an essential component of any study of twentieth-century political history—now with a new introduction by Anne Applebaum Hannah Arendt’s definitive work , The Origins of Totalitarianism, is an essential component of any study of twentieth-century political history. It 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. This edition includes an introduction by Anne Applebaum – a leading voice on authoritarianism and Russian history – who fears that “once again, we are living in a world that Arendt would recognize.” Hannah 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.