"In 1951, a monumental book by a relatively unknown German-Jewish émigré cast a spotlight on the terrifying new mode of political organization underlying the simultaneous emergence of Nazism and Stalinism. Herself a refugee from Nazi persecution, Hannah Arendt sought from her exile in New York City to answer the fundamental questions raised by the unprecedented atrocities in the Soviet Union and Axis-occupied Europe: How could there be such barbarism in the midst of civilization? How had totalitarian governments succeeded in exerting absolute control over millions of their citizens, and in enlisting so many of them to commit mass violence? Arendt begins The Origins of Totalitarianism by exploring the historical conditions of these twentieth-century catastrophes. After a thorough examination of nineteenth-century antisemitism in Europe and a trenchant account of the Dreyfus Affair in France, she turns to the rise of imperialism, describing how the racialized violence of Europe's colonial powers enacted a "dress-rehearsal" for what was to come, laying the groundwork for totalitarianism's advent in the 1920s and 1930s. Among the most chilling features of that era's totalitarian regimes, Arendt argues, were their demands for unquestioning loyalty to the ruling party and their efforts to warp shared perceptions of reality. Exploiting the pervasive loneliness of modern life, she writes, these governments conducted elaborate programs of psychological manipulation that offered meaning and a sense of belonging predicated upon the victimization of others. This Library of America expanded edition presents the complete text of the final authorized version of Origins. As a special feature, it includes in an appendix two chapters dropped from earlier editions that reveal how the book evolved in the decades after first publication. The first, her original "Concluding Remarks," shows Arendt engaging with the emerging concept of human rights in the immediate aftermath of World War II. The second offers an early assessment of the suppressed Hungarian revolution of 1956, a case study in resistance under totalitarian rule. This first annotated edition of Arendt's masterpiece features concise and thorough notes on her many historical and cultural references as well as a newly researched chronology of her remarkable life and career."--

"A relatively unknown German-Jewish émigré addressed the terrifying new mode of political organization underlying the twin horrors of Stalinism and Nazism. Herself a refugee from Nazi persecution, Hannah Arendt sought, from her exile in New York City, to answer the unfathomable questions raised by the Soviet gulag and the Holocaust: How could there be such barbarism in the midst of civilization? How had governments exerted such absolute control over citizens, terrorizing them and enlisting them to commit atrocities on their behalf? Arendt's historical and cultural analyses extend to a thorough examination of nineteenth-century antisemitism in Europe, including a trenchant account of the Dreyfus Affair in France and brilliant insights into imperialism, racism, and their role in totalitarianism's rise in the 1920s and 1930s. Arendt contends that totalitarianism, as a political system, is now embedded in contemporary life and is, as she would later remark, "the central event of our world." Her clear-eyed warning that totalitarianism is not merely a historical episode but is rather a permanent feature of modernity and beyond--a danger never to be fully eradicated, and a continual temptation for anti-democratic demagogues--makes Arendt, a half-century after her death, a preeminent thinker and political philosopher for the twenty-first century."-- Amazon.com.