Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

Ruth Starkman (University of San Francisco)

Ed. by Gerhard P. Knapp, University of Utah
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.4.1: German-language Writing and Culture: Germany, 500-present.
Vol. editors: Gerhard P. Knapp (University of Utah), Jennifer Marston William (Purdue University), Herbert Rowland (Purdue University), Jill E. Twark (East Carolina University)

Domains

Political Philosophy

Dates

First circulation or publication 1951

Places

Germany (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Non-fictional prose

Resources

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Racism will carry out the doom of the western world and for that matter, the whole of human civilization. When Russians have become slavs, when Frenchmen have assumed the role of commanders of a

force noire

, when Englishmen have turned into “white men”, as already for a disastrous spell all German became Aryans, then this change will itself signify the end of Western man. For no matter what learned scientists may say, race is, politically speaking, not the beginning of humanity, but its end, not the origins of peoples but their decay, not the natural birth of man, but his unnatural death.

The Origins of Totalitarianism

(157)

Passionate, genre-defying and encyclopedic, sometimes maddeningly so, Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) makes grand prophetic statements

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2542 words

Citation: Starkman, Ruth. "The Origins of Totalitarianism". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 13 April 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=14454, accessed 21 November 2024.]