The Origins of Totalitarianism

Hannah Arendt’s 1951 book examines antisemitism, imperialism, and totalitarianism as connected developments in modern European history. It analyzes how mass movements and systems of domination made Nazi and Stalinist rule possible.

Antisemitism: Hostility, prejudice, or discrimination directed against Jews as Jews. Arendt traces modern antisemitism as a political force that helped prepare the ground for totalitarian movements.
Ideology: A structured system of ideas that explains political and social reality through an organizing doctrine. Arendt describes totalitarian ideology as imposing a supposedly inevitable logic on events.
Dreyfus affair: A French political scandal beginning in 1894 over the wrongful conviction of Jewish army officer Alfred Dreyfus. Arendt uses the affair to examine antisemitism, nationalism, and political corruption in France.
Hannah Arendt: A German-born American political thinker whose works examine power, revolution, and political responsibility. She wrote the book and developed its distinctive account of totalitarian domination.
Human rights: Rights understood to belong to every person by virtue of being human. Arendt’s account of statelessness questions whether rights endure without political membership.
Imperialism: A policy or system through which a state extends power over other territories and peoples. The book treats overseas imperial expansion as a source of practices later used in Europe.
Totalitarian propaganda: Political communication that mobilizes support by presenting an ideologically constructed account of reality. Propaganda helps movements attract the masses before they control state institutions.
Scramble for Africa: The late nineteenth-century European partition and conquest of African territories. The book connects imperial expansion in Africa with racial doctrines and administrative practices.
Karl Marx: A nineteenth-century philosopher and political economist whose writings shaped socialist and communist movements. Arendt examines how Marxist historical claims were transformed within Stalinist ideology.
The right to have rights: Arendt’s phrase for the basic claim to belong to a political community where rights can be protected. The book’s analysis of statelessness gives this formulation its political force.

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