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Politics & Society

The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt
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The Origins of Totalitarianism

by Hannah Arendt

Recommendations from our site

“The Origins of Totalitarianism is the first great book to try and understand totalitarianism. It’s a book of political theory, as well as a work of history and of philosophy. But it’s also a testimony. She started writing the book when she was a stateless person, a refugee in Vichy France.” Read more...

The best books on Human Rights and Literature

Lyndsey Stonebridge, Literary Scholar

“It’s a study of the various elements that crystallized in the appearance of totalitarianism in the 20th century. Arendt writes about the decline of the nation state, the privatisation of public political institutions. She writes about the rise of what today we would call ‘fake news’ and political propaganda. She writes about our inability to distinguish fact from fiction. She writes about mass rootlessness, homelessness. And she writes about the necessity of solitude and the dangers of loneliness.” Read more...

The best books on Hannah Arendt

Samantha Rose Hill, Philosopher

“Her most useful (and her most chilling) conclusion for today is that totalitarian tools were not specific to Nazism or Stalinism or any ideology. Arendt’s words should be studied today by those who want to prevent the further spread of authoritarian regimes and the ideologies they are propagating.” Read more...

The best books on Fascism

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Historian

Other books by Hannah Arendt

Thinking Without a Banister by Hannah Arendt

Thinking Without a Banister
by Hannah Arendt

Men in Dark Times by Hannah Arendt

Men in Dark Times
by Hannah Arendt

The Human Condition by Hannah Arendt

The Human Condition
by Hannah Arendt

Letters: 1925-1975 by Hannah Arendt & Martin Heidegger

Letters: 1925-1975
by Hannah Arendt & Martin Heidegger

Eichmann in Jerusalem by Hannah Arendt

Eichmann in Jerusalem
by Hannah Arendt

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    by Aldous Huxley

  • Democracy in America
    by Alexis de Tocqueville

  • Nineteen Eighty-Four
    by George Orwell

  • Homage to Catalonia
    by George Orwell

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