Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

The Origins of Totalitarianism

4.18 of 5 stars 4.18 · rating details · 1,782 ratings · 73 reviews

Hannah Arendt's definitive work on totalitarianism and an essential component of any study of twentieth-century political history

The Origins of Totalitarianism begins with the rise of anti-Semitism in central and western Europe in the 1800s and continues with an examination of European colonial imperialism from 1884 to the outbreak of World War I. Arendt explores the insti...more

Paperback, 527 pages

Published March 21st 1973 by Mariner Books (first published 1951)

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan

Time Magazine's All-TIME 100 Best Non-Fiction Books

75th out of 100 books — 190 voters

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century

61st out of 100 books — 87 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 3,000)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

May 04, 2012 Chris rated it 3 of 5 stars

Way back when I read this, I recall being somewhat surprised at how few works she actually referenced in this tripartite tome, especially in the latter two sections on Imperialism and Totalitarianism; and, for the first of these, the surprise turned to incredulity when it occurred to me that she appeared to be basing a considerable part of her argument—virtually the entirety regarding the interaction between Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa, IIRC—upon the most famous fictional work by Joseph Conrad...more

13 likes · like · see review

Nov 25, 2007 Rob rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: people who have already read 1000 european history books but haven't read this yet, i.e. nobody

Shelves: didnt-finish, non-fiction-for-humans

certainly in the running for the most disappointing book ever. first, it's on all these lists of the greatest books ever, plus it's got a really high rating on goodreads. plus i open it and the first few pages are breathtaking. hannah is one killer sentencecrafter. a vixen of prose. some sentences 50+ words long but you only need to read them once because they are both precise and action-packed. and oh, the promise her intros seem to hold. bold, sweeping strokes that wipe out long-held beliefs a...more certainly in the running for the most disappointing book ever. first, it's on all these lists of the greatest books ever, plus it's got a really high rating on goodreads. plus i open it and the first few pages are breathtaking. hannah is one killer sentencecrafter. a vixen of prose. some sentences 50+ words long but you only need to read them once because they are both precise and action-packed. and oh, the promise her intros seem to hold. bold, sweeping strokes that wipe out long-held beliefs and foretell of new paradigms to come. the great human cataclysms of our times will be analysed and the true causes, forces at work through the centuries, laid bare.

but the promise is completely unrealised. i read 200 pages closely, then skimmed through 100 more. it turns into an excrutiating brick of mass psychobabble. "jews felt this way, so they acted this way, so others felt this way about them, so this made jews feel this way, so they did this."
"imperialists had these intentions, so they tried to do this, but it made people feel this way, so the imperialists changed to this methodology in order to make people feel this way." every group is a monolith which thinks and acts like an archetypal individual. which, ok, is sometimes a necessary simplification in history, but the real killer is her EVIDENCE. time and time and time again, her "evidence" is a quote from another historian, or even a quote from a contemporary NOVEL. IF YOU WANT TO PROVE A THESIS ABOUT HISTORY, YOU HAVE TO PROVE IT WITH HISTORY, NOT BY QUOTING THE CONCLUSIONS OF OTHERS. i came away pretty sure that she didn't have much of a head for figures or economics. almost no numbers at all are quoted as evidence.

even if i were convinced of her ideas, if i espoused them to someone who then challenged me to defend them, this book provides almost nothing i could use. but then of course what makes the whole thing even worse is that i don't think she's correct at all.

there is one tiny speck of possibility. hannah had obviously read thousands of books and essays and letters on the subject. i suppose it is possible that she assumed her audience would also be like her, so that she only needed to point at her sources, rather than reprise the events and people that are the subjects of history. there are multiple footnotes on most pages and about 1000 items in the bibliography.

if you want to learn how the world came to look like it does, don't read this. read Tragedy and Hope, by carroll quigley(less)

8 likes · like · see review

Jan 24, 2009 Tony rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: history

Arendt, Hannah. THE ORIGINS OF TOTALITARIANISM. (1951). ****. Arendt was a well-known intellectual and teacher of political philosophy, and wrote several key books and papers expressing her views and analysis of, among other things, Nazi Germany. In this book – the seminal work on it’s topic – she created an instant classic and a definitive study of this political movement. The book is divided into three main parts: Antisemitism, Imperialism, and Totalitarianism. Her thesis, ultimately, is that...more

3 likes · like · see review

Aug 16, 2012 Gijs rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, history, philosophy-and-religion, 20th-century, war, german, 20th-century-1950s

Lijvige studie over totalitarianisme en hoe deze is ontstaan uit het antisemitisme en het imperialisme.

Het boek graaft ver terug, tot in de 17e eeuw en vormt ook een boeiende beschrijving van het imperialisme en hoe het verschilt van het kolonialisme. Het is echter niet zozeer een geschiedschrijving alswel een diepgaande analyse van het ontstaan van gedachtegoed en zijn consequenties.

Vooral de beschrijving van het totalitarianisme en zijn eigenschappen zijn origineel en openbarend. Arendt beschr...more

like · see review

Apr 11, 2010 Maggie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

this book was (first) published in 1951, written by a BRILLIANT thinker (who happens to have been a woman) who spanned the 20th century (1906-1975), and covers THE essential topic of that century: the origin of national and international horrors and the political systems/ideas that supported such untoward horror.

thus far the 21st century is inheriting this way of politics. this book (amazingly and really) answers so many questions that it is mind-boggling at the sheer number of insights and the...more

1 like · like · see review

Sep 14, 2012 Patrick rated it 4 of 5 stars

This took me quite a long time to finish and I’m really not sure that I have very much to say about it. I certainly can’t attempt anything like a ‘review’ since I feel like my reading was a fairly superficial one, given that I’m not a historian and have little else to legitimately compare this to. Some parts I liked and some I did not. There are long passages where it is very dry and quite difficult to read, and there is a lot of stuff which seems like pure speculation, but equally there are par...more

like · see review

Jan 16, 2012 Andrew rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

First Part's essentially about Court Jews: big pre-industrialization bankers for many, many states in Europe. The Rothchilds are presented as the most important institution in this regard, a family which split to 5 European capitals. These Jews were granted a special citizenship, with higher benefits if the Jewish population was not huge; ie changing in Austro-Flux-Hungary and as German states' borders moved east. Jews were urban in Western Europe relatively rural to Eastern Europe. A significan...more First Part's essentially about Court Jews: big pre-industrialization bankers for many, many states in Europe. The Rothchilds are presented as the most important institution in this regard, a family which split to 5 European capitals. These Jews were granted a special citizenship, with higher benefits if the Jewish population was not huge; ie changing in Austro-Flux-Hungary and as German states' borders moved east. Jews were urban in Western Europe relatively rural to Eastern Europe. A significant section discusses Jewish identity from Court Jews to Marcel Proust. After explaining that Court Jews were the types Marx directed anti-Semitism towards (Marx was Jewish), Arendt cites a number of examples of Court-Jew-type financiers not taking control of industries which were forfeit to them by bankruptcy, and shunning prominent public roles for most of their investments, because they didn't think they could run factories as well as a Gentile owner, you know, culturally. Buying out to become Nobility, but that not being super-grand for people who were on a razors-edge their careers and lives of being protected and loathed, rich and relatively powerless, feared and bullied, loved (personally and as "uniquely Jewish" artists), always inside society and outside, a prominent minority: often the Scapegoat. She traces Judaism to Jewishness in Western Europe; in the second chapter she'll parallel the Boer minority to Jews and say Jews are going to be a target of any racial supremacist as a visible and kinda literate minority. Obviously not a problem everywhere all the time.

But the wealth of Court Jews was being exponentially out-earned in manufacturing industries they chose not to run. After decades of Rothchilds signing both sides of a bunch of vindictive International peace treaties the Jews were a visible minority associated with wealth and some local poverty because of those treaties, but were actually dwindling in relative wealth and losing state protection because of certain sloppy peace treaties. Obviously not a problem everywhere all the time, but in eastern Europe after 1884 when English and French merchant Imperialism was trouncing German and Russian economies and the capitalist downturns of the 1860s and 1870 relieved west of Germany, were never relieved east of France.

Then It's your boy Disreali, it's your boy Hobbes describing Imperialist Capitalism, from 1884-1914, an economic reaction to Capitalism stalling in the 1860s and 1870s where produce was shipped outta Western Europe. It's your boys Kipling and Kafka. It's your boy Cecil Rhodes buying out Jewish financiers. It's your boys the Boers becoming the first nation to challenge the Jews' claim as a chosen race-apart, and it's Continental Imperialism (read Pan-Germanism and Pan-Slavism) using what were sorta-clear race definitions in South Africa's inexplicable colonial boom b/c nuggetss and ice (but inexplicable because it coincided with the opening of the Suez canal when all other nations stepping-stone-to-India colonies fell into disrepair by the end of the French Revolution). Obviously insidious, and consider applying race theories in say the death throws of Austro-Hungary pre-1914. D'you know there was a Congress of Organized National Groups at the League of Nations there were so many "minorities" written into the 1919 treaties. The block had a lot of clout (25 to 40% of votes, no minorities in Germany itself, only east of there. By one count more than 50% of people in the 1919 treaties were not their state's Majority). Demands that states grant protection to quote "non-nationals" would lead to massive denationalizations (striping peoples' of citizenship and leaving them in the lurch) especially after the Russian revolution and the Civil War in Spain made expulsions of class enemies a thing to do. Arendt talks about the irony of the 1919 Treaties, some of Stalin's j'accusations, and the Protocol of the Elders of Zion all coming true in their reverse (on the last, the point being the nasty, back-biting, conspiratorial and racist society described as the Elders of Zion's goal being totalitarian governments (ie Hitler and Stalin). Denationalizing person, in those days, was dehumanizing them. The two biggest voting blocks of minorities were Germans outside Germany and Jews until they split on a motion about German Jews circa 1933 at which point totalitarianism's well on its way. Denationalized people would often receive a higher legal status if they would commit a crime. Refugees and poverty.
(less)

like · see review

Jan 21, 2011 Neal Romanek rated it 5 of 5 stars

I'd always assumed totalitarianism and dictatorship were the same thing. But nope. I learned more about modern politics and power reading this masterpiece by Hannah Arendt than in the past 20 years of reading and studying. I was shocked to find that certain baffling features of contemporary political movements suddenly make perfect, terrifying sense when viewed from a totalitarian perspective.

Some fun things I learned about totalitarian movements:

-Totalitarian movements deny objective reality a...more

2 likes · like · see review

Mar 09, 2012 Iñaki Tofiño rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

639 páginas, casi un mes de lectura, pero ciertamente vale la pena dedicarle tiempo y esfuerzo.
La tesis de Arendt es que los totalitarismos del siglo XX (los que ella conoció, el nazismo y el estalinismo) son un subproducto del imperialismo de finales del XIX y principios del XX, que a su vez no se entiende sin estudiar el antisemitismo político de finales del XIX. Interesante, bien argumentado, juicioso en su análisis de las sociedades totalitarias, basadas en la profunda soledad del ser humano...more

like · see review

Mar 07, 2011 Dylan Suher rated it 5 of 5 stars

Her views on Anti-Semitism are mostly what my grandfather would have called "German Jewish thinking" and whenever she writes about America or Africa, it's frankly embarrassing. But when she's talking about European pre-war politics, she's absolutely on point. She has great insight into the basic human impulses at the heart of the great evils of the 20th century, insights which I found useful even when thinking about the Tea Party Movement. I found myself nostalgic (a blessedly rare mode for me)...more

1 like · like · see review

Oct 02, 2009 Jon-Erik rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: Φιλοσοφία, history

So far, I'm finding this interesting, though it suffers from many of the same defects that philosophers encounter when writing about history. For example, relying on portrayals in novels is not evidence. Not about popular history, not about the "zeitgeist" whatever that is.

It's things like that that make me nervous that the conclusions based on these weak propositions are false. Also, there is a powerful dose of Marxist philosophy of history here, which I don't reject because it's Marxist, but...more

1 like · like · see review

May 24, 2008 david-baptiste rated it 5 of 5 stars

I just begin this, which have wanted to read for a very long time.
Not surprisingly, one finds descriptions and analyses and brilliant insights in here, not only regarding the Nazis and Stalinists, but the situation of today in the USA, in which new forms of the Totalitarian are steadily under construction for several decades now.
It is interesting that Zizek, for example, who was on Democracy Now this week, has signalled in his new book For lost Causes, that what is necessary now is not the fur...more I just begin this, which have wanted to read for a very long time.
Not surprisingly, one finds descriptions and analyses and brilliant insights in here, not only regarding the Nazis and Stalinists, but the situation of today in the USA, in which new forms of the Totalitarian are steadily under construction for several decades now.
It is interesting that Zizek, for example, who was on Democracy Now this week, has signalled in his new book For lost Causes, that what is necessary now is not the further investigation of the meaning of fascism, but that of Stalinism. (There are also currently fashionable forays back into the "good old days" of Mao's Cultural Revolution, which seem to make the same Romanticized mistakes all over again in understanding what Mao was actually doing, rather than saying. That is, what is preferred is of course the saying--without understanding that Mao often says something which sounds "good" in order to draw out from their lairs his enemies, his competition. Who can ever forget the Sheer genius of "Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom"--and the consequent massacres of millions of flowers who stepped forth to bloom without understanding this blooming signaled their "dangerous" presence? Machiavelli would be approving of this ruthless blood drenched method disguised as a lovely innocent flower.)
Arendt's insights into and ways of describing with great lucidity the "irrational" "rationality" of the existence within societies which begin to accept, to embrace, structures which demolish them is truly harrowing and I find more relevant now than ever.
It is the time in which everything begins, as in Orwell, to become its opposite when expressed in words. The embrace with such forms of language and thought, based in good part on emotions, at once ties masses of persons tighter together, and at the same time creates ever more distance from that ever more dehumanized Other, which can be flipped at any moment into being oneself in this hall of mirrors. (less)

1 like · like · see review

Aug 01, 2007 W. C. rated it 5 of 5 stars

What to say about Arendt? She is one of those authors who intrigues as much as she frustrates, which means that there is something important going on. And although many in the continental tradition now reject many of Arendt’s theories, you will see this text crop up again and again as the one with insight into the nature of totalitarianism and its genealogy (although historians generally reject many aspects of her analysis).

What is particularly important about this text, I think, is the level t...more

1 like · like · see review

Jul 27, 2011 Joseph Sverker added it

Shelves: philosophy

This is an absolutely fantastic book. It is so well researched that I never think I have read anything like it previously. I can find no way how one could disagree with her conclusions. This is sharp argumentation. I think the first part on anti-semitism is the most enlightening. Maybe it was because that one was somewhat easier for someone like me that is not used to social science. There are some thoughts and formulations in here that I think I will bring in to my dissertation - inspiring!

like · see review

Aug 26, 2009 Tony duncan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: audio, history, education, philosophy, politics, psychology

fasconating book with a wealth of information and intersting interseecting timelines betwee anti semitism, economic development, colonialism and the historical roots of Stalinism and Nazi ism.
Soem fo it clearly reminds me of the approach of the Bush Admin to a number of issues of course not nearly to the extent, but some of the same mindset is there, and I see it especially pronounced in the insane propoganda of the right wing, neocon, fundamentalist wing of the republican party

like · see review

Dec 12, 2012 Sarah Beth rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Sarah Beth by: school

Shelves: nonfiction

You won't know quite how much you hate college until you walk out of the final exam of your undergrad career and feel the freest and happiest you have felt in years, literally years. I emerge from behind piles of books and papers and spine-bruising chairs smiling for once and kind of floating.
Anyway, I am happy that I got to conclude this era with Miss Hannah Arendt. I am also happy I now know how to avoid all the trappings of totalitarian movements.

like · see review

Apr 06, 2012 Lou rated it 2 of 5 stars

To begin with the good side of this book, it is well written and quite interesting to read. For the rest, well, ... Neither historian nor political thinker, Hannah Arendt is in the middle and it is the problem. She is not rigourous enough and does not seek solutions or answers. Evidences and facts are obviously irrelevant to her. I don't think that her analysis of totalitarianism is correct and this book had nothing serious to say to convince me.

like · see review

Feb 17, 2009 Gabriel Iwan Prasetyono rated it 5 of 5 stars

Aku membaca versi bahasa Indonesia-nya terbitan Obor. Sebuah buku non-fiksi luar astronomi yang aku telen bulat2 utuh dan gak bosan2 aku ulang. Sebuah buku yang memberikan banyak pencerahan berdasarkan fakta sejarah. Sayang bukunya dipinjem orang n belom kembali (kesalahan paling bego yang aku lakukan). Satu kalimat yang masih aku inget, kira-kira: "Memahami bukan hanya mengerti, tetapi ikut ambil bagian dalam permasalah.".

like · see review

Aug 04, 2010 Andrew rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: informational-read

This was required reading in a political science course of mine in college. This book is incredible and one of the most intelligent reads anyone could ever pick up. Arrendt gives the definitive history of the rise of anti-semitism, and the Nazi and Russian totalitarian states. You want to understand the world we live in today, history like this is something you must read.

1 like · like · see review

Jul 29, 2011 Nilesh rated it 4 of 5 stars

Reading the two world war history and particularly the genocide, one rarely comes across this question: how can so many intelligent, generally moral, common people in power and outside allow some of these things happen. The same question needs to be asked for Stalin's Russia too. This book tries to provide theoretical answers to this question in a highly didactic way. As a result, the book becomes repetitive and wordy but an essential read for anyone trying to understand the horrors of the first...more

like · see review

Oct 07, 2010 Phil rated it 4 of 5 stars

The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt is a big important book that I'm glad I read. It chronicles the combination of anti-semitism and imperialism that led up to both the USSR under Stalin and the Nazis under Hitler. Discussions of reality, propaganda and fear, and especially the role of nationalism make it valuable. Also a fantastic cure for insomnia.

like · see review

Mar 01, 2013 Dimitra added it

(More of a comment for those who favour academic research and amateur historians). This book is not historical, it is a MASTERPIECE of POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. Hannah Arendt has provided already quite enough sources from the 30's to support her argument, but the very notion of philosophy is the creation of an argument that tries to explain physical, political or social phaenomena. Therefore, the evidence and the historical facts of an era should not be considered as crucial by the reader. The main...more

like · see review

Jul 03, 2010 Bryan added it · review of another edition

A Book to be read now: I'll keep this simple: look at what is going on in the US, in the MId-East, in China. If that doesn't alarm you, you need to read this book even more carefully than the rest of us, as Histaory is about to repeat itself because our xenophobia knows no limits. This is as critical today as it was when Arendt wrote it.

like · see review

Aug 17, 2012 Amblingbooks.com marked it as to-read

Shelves: audiobook, history

"The work of one who has thought as well as suffered�.A disquieting, moving, and thought-provoking book."�New York Times Book Review

Listen to The Origins of Totalitarianism on your iPhone, desktop, or smartphone.

like · see review

Sep 24, 2012 Azis Mutaqin added it

Melewati keganasan sangkar besi di jerman yang sudah tidak bisa diterimanya lagi.berimigran ke wilayah prancis yang sempat terendus oleh nazi.merupakan perjalanan kegelisahan arendt.Banalitas dan kebebasan yang diprivatisasi dan mnejadi milik publik.Arend menuangkanya lewat Origin of totaliterian

like · see review

Jan 26, 2010 Amanda rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: politics

I skimmed through this one as I was writing my thesis last year. I find it hard to remember it precisely because I was going through so many books at the time. I do remember she made some interesting points about what makes a regime totalitarian, with some interesting insight into European history.

like · see review

Apr 26, 2009 Peter rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 20th-century, history, german-writers, european-history, fascism, holocaust, political-theory, socialism, 1914-1945, nebcat1, 1950s, theory-adjacent

There's plenty here, including questions of methodology, to question, but I'm a little bit curious where the idea that the books we read are supposed to be perfect comes from. It inspires a lot of serious thought, which is good enough for me. The discussion of the Dreyfus Affair is especially worth reading.

like · see review

Jan 30, 2012 Sean Chick rated it 5 of 5 stars

This was the first real philosophy book I tried to tackle and it was worth it. Arendt is probably the best 20th century philosopher, in part because she asked political questions and avoided postmodernism.

like · see review

May 15, 2013 Will Kujala rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Read the chapters: "The Nation-state and the Birth of Antisemitism," "The Decline of the Nation-State and the End of the Rights of Man," "The Totalitarian Movement," and "Ideology and Terror."

like · see review

Nov 02, 2011 Güis Guerrero-Enterría rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: filosofía

El esfuerzo de Hanna arendt por dar una explicación a lo sucedido en Europa a principios del S.XX. Como fue posible que todos enloquecieran, como es posible que sucedieran las cosas que sucedieron.

like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 99 100 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »

Recommend it | Stats | Recent status updates

combine
Other Editions (35)

More editions...

Genres

Philosophy

117 users

History

93 users

Politics

69 users

Non Fiction

66 users

Politics > Political Science

18 users

Sociology

15 users

Philosophy > Theory

11 users

Academic

8 users

Psychology

6 users

History > European History

6 users

See top shelves...

Readers also enjoyed similar books

About Hannah Arendt

Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) was one of the most influential political philosophers of the twentieth century. Born into a German-Jewish family, she was forced to leave Germany in 1933 and lived in Paris for the next eight years, working for a number of Jewish refugee organisations. In 1941 she immigrated to the United States and soon became part of a lively intellectual circle in New York. She held a...more

More about Hannah Arendt...

Books by Hannah Arendt

Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Trivia About The Origins of To...

3 trivia questions

More quizzes & trivia...

Quotes from The Origins of Totalit...

“Caution in handling generally accepted opinions that claim to explain whole trends of history is especially important for the historian of modern times, because the last century has produced an abundance of ideologies that pretend to be keys to history but are actually nothing but desperate efforts to escape responsibility.” — 18 people liked it

“That Hegelian dialectics should provide a wonderful instrument for always being right, because they permit the interpretations of all defeats as the beginning of victory, is obvious. One of the most beautiful examples of this kind of sophistry occurred after 1933 when the German Communists for nearly two years refused to recognize that Hitler's victory had been a defeat for the German Communist Party.” — 8 people liked it

More quotes…

title link	preview: The Origins of Totalitarianism
avg rating	preview: The Origins of Totalitarianism Goodreads rating: 4.18 (1782 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/396931.The_Origins_of_Totalitarianism?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1315297160l/396931.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/396931.The_Origins_of_Totalitarianism?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt[/url]

The Origins of Totalitarianism

Friend Reviews

Community Reviews

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website