The Origins of Totalitarianism
LC Class | JC480 .A74 2004 |
The Origins of Totalitarianism, published in 1951, was
History
The Origins of Totalitarianism[1] was first published in English in 1951.[note 1] A German translation was published in 1955 as Elemente und Ursprünge totaler Herrschaft ("Elements and Origins of Totalitarian Rule"). A second, enlarged edition was published in 1958, and contained two additional chapters, replacing her original "Concluding Remarks".[2] Chapter Thirteen was titled "Ideology and Terror: A novel form of government", which she had published separately in 1953.[3] Chapter Fourteen dealt with the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, entitled "Epilogue: Reflections on the Hungarian Revolution". Subsequent editions omitted this chapter, which was published separately in English ("Totalitarian Imperialism: Reflections on the Hungarian Revolution")[4] and German (Die ungarische Revolution und der totalitäre Imperialismus)[5] in 1958.[6]
Structure and content
Like many of Arendt's books, The Origins of Totalitarianism is structured as three essays: "Antisemitism", "Imperialism" and "Totalitarianism". The book describes the various preconditions and subsequent rise of
Analysis of antisemitism and imperialism
Arendt begins the book with an analysis of the rise of antisemitism in Europe and particularly focused on the Dreyfus affair.[10] In particular, Arendt traces the social movement of the Jewry in Europe since their emancipation by the French edict of 1792, their special role in supporting and maintaining the nation-state and their failure to assimilate into the European class society.[14] European Jewry's association with the nation-state meant that their destinies were to an extent tied. As Arendt observed, "modern anti-semitism grew in proportion as traditional nationalism declined, and reached its climax at the exact moment when the European system of nation-states and its precarious balance of power crashed."[15] Nazi Germany would later exploit that antisemitism and targeted the Jewry, which was construed, among other things, as a proxy for the nation-state. In so doing, Nazism sought, among other reasons, to organize the masses to bring about the disintegration of the nation-state system and to advance the totalitarian project, which was global in its orientation.[16]
She then discusses
Arendt concludes that while
[T]otalitarian movements depend on the sheer force of numbers to such an extent that totalitarian regimes seem impossible, even under otherwise favorable circumstances, in countries with relatively small populations.... [E]ven Mussolini, who was so fond of the term "totalitarian state," did not attempt to establish a full-fledged totalitarian regime and contented himself with dictatorship and one-party rule.[17]
Mechanics of totalitarian movements
The book's final section is devoted to describing the mechanics of
... Intellectual, spiritual, and artistic initiative is as dangerous to totalitarianism as the gangster initiative of the mob, and both are more dangerous than mere political opposition. The consistent persecution of every higher form of intellectual activity by the new mass leaders springs from more than their natural resentment against everything they cannot understand. Total domination does not allow for free initiative in any field of life, for any activity that is not entirely predictable. Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.[18]
Hannah Arendt considers the Soviet and Nazi regimes alongside European colonies in Africa and Asia, as their later and gruesome transformation due to the effect of imperial boomerang. She analyzes Russian pan-Slavism as a stage in the development of racism and totalitarianism. Her analysis was continued by Alexander Etkind in the book "Internal colonization: Russia's imperial experience".[19]
Arendt discusses the use of front organizations, fake governmental agencies, and esoteric doctrines as a means of concealing the radical nature of totalitarian aims from the non-totalitarian world. Near the end of the book, Arendt writes that loneliness is a precondition for totalitarian domination, with people who are socially isolated being more likely to be attracted to totalitarian ideology and movements.[20]
Reception
Le Monde placed the book among the 100 best books of any kind of the 20th century, and the National Review ranked it #15 on its list of the 100 best non-fiction books of the century.[21] The Intercollegiate Studies Institute listed it among the 50 best non-fiction books of the century.[22] The book made a major impact on Norman Podhoretz, who compared the pleasure of reading it to that of reading a great poem or novel.[23]
The book has also attracted criticism, among them a piece in the
The historian Emmanuelle Saada disputes Arendt's work and the general scholarly consensus that the rise of scientific racism directly correlates with the rise of colonialist imperialism. Saada contests that there is little evidence to support that ideas like those of Arthur de Gobineau, whom Arendt explicitly mentions, hold an important place in the scientific justification of European colonialism. Saada asserts that Arendt overemphasizes the role of scientific racism in forming modern totalitarianism, but in reality, Arendt should attribute blame to the "bureaucratic racism" she discusses elsewhere in the text.[29]
Such scholars as Jürgen Habermas have supported Arendt in her 20th-century criticism of totalitarian readings of Marxism. That commentary on Marxism has indicated concerns with the limits of totalitarian perspectives often associated with Marx's apparent over-estimation of the emancipatory potential of the forces of production. Habermas extends that critique in his writings on functional reductionism in the life-world in his Lifeworld and System: A Critique of Functionalist Reason.[30]
Historian John Lukacs was highly critical calling it a "flawed and dishonest book" with "unhistorical and shrilly verbose" and that Arendt coverage of the Soviet Union was superficial. [31] [32]
See also
- Imperialism(1902)
- Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century
- Theodor Adorno's The Authoritarian Personality(1950)
Note
- ^ Originally published in the United Kingdom as The Burden of Our Time.
References
- ^ a b Arendt 1976.
- ^ Arendt 1976, p. xxiv.
- ^ Arendt 1953.
- ^ Arendt 1958.
- ^ Arendt 1958a.
- ^ Szécsényi 2005.
- ^ Arendt 1976, p. 460.
- ^ a b FCG 2018, Introduction.
- ^ Arendt 1976, p. 325.
- ^ a b c Riesman 1951.
- ^ Copjec 1996.
- ^ Hattem & Hattem 2005.
- ^ Heller 2015, p. 7.
- ^ Arendt 1976, pp. 11, 13, 19.
- ^ Arendt 1976, p. 3.
- ^ Arendt 1976, pp. 222–266.
- ^ Arendt 1976, pp. 308–309.
- ^ Arendt 1976, Chapter Ten: A Classless Society, p.416.
- ISBN 9780745673547.
- ^
ISBN 978-1529329254.
- ^ The 100 Best Non-fiction Books of the Century, National Review
- ^ Intercollegiate Studies Institute's "50 Best Books of the 20th Century" (Non-fiction) Archived 2006-06-20 at the Wayback Machine
- ISBN 0-684-85594-1.
- ^ Horowitz, Irving Louis (January 2010). "Assaulting Arendt". First Things. Retrieved 11 March 2014.
- ^ Wasserstein, Bernard (October 2009). "Blame the Victim—Hannah Arendt Among the Nazis: the Historian and Her Sources". Times Literary Supplement.
- OCLC 3913685.
- OCLC 51306025.
- OCLC 709681211.
- S2CID 166993896, retrieved 2020-12-08
- ^ Habermas, Jurgen (1981), Kleine Politische Schrifen I-IV, pp. 500f.
- ^ Lukacs, John The Hitler of History, New York: Alfred Knopf, 1997 pages 113-114
- ^ Lukacs, John "Intellectual Opportunism & the Arteriosclerosis of the American Intelligentsia" New Oxford Review
Bibliography
- ISBN 978-1-85984-911-8.
- Hattem, Cornelis Van; Hattem, Kees van (2005). Superfluous people: a reflection on Hannah Arendt and evil. ISBN 978-0-7618-3304-8.
- Heller, Anne Conover (2015). Hannah Arendt: A Life in Dark Times. ISBN 978-0-544-45619-8. excerpt
- ISBN 978-0-19-507780-3.
- Szécsényi, Endre (30 March 2005). The Hungarian Revolution in the "Reflections" by Hannah Arendt. Europe or the Globe? Eastern European Trajectories in Times of Integration and Globalization. Vienna: IWM. Retrieved 3 August 2018.* "Hannah Arendt". Contemporary Thinkers. The Foundation for Constitutional Government. 2018. Retrieved 28 July 2018.
- Williams, Zoe (1 February 2017). "Totalitarianism in the age of Trump: lessons from Hannah Arendt". The Guardian.
- Riesman, David (1 April 1951). "The Origins of Totalitarianism, by Hannah Arendt". Commentary (Review). Retrieved 23 August 2018.
- JSTOR 42896812.
Works by Arendt
- ISBN 978-0-547-54315-4., (see also The Origins of Totalitarianism and Comparison of Nazism and Stalinism) Full text (1979 edition) on Internet Archive
- — (1953). "Ideology and Terror: A Novel Form of Government".
- — (1958). "Totalitarian Imperialism: Reflections on the Hungarian Revolution". S2CID 154428972.
- — (1958). Die ungarische Revolution und der totalitäre Imperialismus (in German). München: R. Piper & Co Verlag.
- Arendt, Hannah (1973). The Origins of Totalitarianism (1973 New ed.). New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. ISBN 0-15-670153-7.