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Article: The Origins of Totalitarianism: not history, but politics.
- Article from:
- Social Research
- Article date:
- June 22, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 New School for Social Research. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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DURING the summer of 1950, when Hannah Arendt was on vacation, she was reading proofs for The Origins of Totalitarianism. In a letter to her mentor and beloved friend, Karl Jaspers, she wrote:
A lot of work here, of course, but also swimming and walks. Reading proofs
is awful, that is boring. I've taken a different epigraph from Logik from
the one I mentioned to you before: "Give yourself up neither to the past
nor to the future. The important thing is to remain wholly in the present."
That sentence struck me right in the heart, so I'm entitled to have it
(Arendt and Jaspers, 1992: 153).
We know just how deeply that sentence struck ...