|
|
Article: The three phases of Arendt's theory of totalitarianism *.
- 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)
|
HANNAH Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism, first published in 1951, is a bewilderingly wide-ranging work, a book about much more than just totalitarianism and its immediate origins. (1) In fact, it is not really about those immediate origins at all. The book's peculiar organization creates a certain ambiguity regarding its intended subject-matter and scope. (2) The first part, "Anti-semitism," tells the story of the rise of modern, secular anti-Semitism (as distinct from what the author calls "religious Jew-hatred") up to the turn of the twentieth century, and ends with the Dreyfus affair in France--a "dress rehearsal," in Arendt's words, for things still worse to ...