Hannah Arendt Totalitarianism And The Social Sciences

This book examines the nature of totalitarianism as interpreted by some of the finest minds of the twentieth century. It focuses on Hannah Arendt's claim that totalitarianism was an entirely unprecedented regime and that the social sciences had integrally misconstrued it. A sociologist who is a critical admirer of Arendt, Baehr looks sympathetically at Arendt's objections to social science and shows that her complaints were in many respects justified. Avoiding broad disciplinary endorsements or dismissals, Baehr reconstructs the theoretical and political stakes of Arendt's encounters with prominent social scientists such as David Riesman, Raymond Aron, and Jules Monnerot. In presenting the first systematic appraisal of Arendt's critique of the social sciences, Baehr examines what it means to see an event as unprecedented. Furthermore, he adapts Arendt and Aron's philosophies to shed light on modern Islamist terrorism and to ask whether it should be categorized alongside Stalinism and National Socialism as totalitarian.

The Anthem Companion to Hannah Arendt offers a unique collection of essays on one of the twentieth century’s greatest thinkers. The companion encompasses Arendt’s most salient arguments and major works – The Origins of Totalitarianism, The Human Condition, Eichmann in Jerusalem, On Revolution and The Life of the Mind. The volume also examines Arendt’s intellectual relationships with Max Weber, Karl Mannheim and other key social scientists. Although written principally for students new to Arendt’s work, The Anthem Companion to Hannah Arendt also engages the most avid Arendt scholar.

In the first volume of her landmark philosophical work, The Origins of Totalitarianism, the political theorist traces the rise of antisemitism in Europe. Since it was first published in 1951, The Origins of Totalitarianism has been recognized as the definitive philosophical account of the totalitarian mindset. A probing analysis of Nazism, Stalinism, and the “banality of evil”, it remains one of the most referenced works in studies and discussions of totalitarian movements around the world. In this first volume, Antisemitism, Dr. Hannah Arendt traces the rise of antisemitism to Central and Western European Jewish history during the 19th century. With the appearance of the first political activity by antisemitic parties in the 1870s and 1880s, Arendt states, the machinery that led to the horrors of the Holocaust was set in motion. The Dreyfus Affair, in Arendt’s view, was “a kind of dress rehearsal”—the first modern use of antisemitism as an instrument of public policy and of hysteria as a political weapon. “The most original and profound—therefore the most valuable—political theorist of our times.”—Dwight MacDonald, The New Leader

Hannah Arendt first argued the continuities between the age of European imperialism and the age of fascism in Europe in 'The Origins of Totalitarianism'. This text uses Arendt's insights as a starting point for further investigations into the ways in which race, imperialism, slavery and genocide are linked.

Hannah Arendt is one of the most famous political theorists of the twentieth century, yet in the social sciences, her work has rarely been given the attention it deserves. This careful and comprehensive study introduces Arendt to a wider audience. Finn Bowring shows how Arendt's writings have engaged with and influenced prominent figures in the sociological canon, and how her ideas may shed light on some of the most pressing social and political problems of today. He explores her critique of Marx, her relationship to Weber, the influence of her work on Habermas, and the parallels and discrepancies between her and Foucault. This is a clearly written and scholarly text which surveys the leading debates over Arendt’s work, including discussions of totalitarianism, the public sphere, and the nature of political responsibility. This book will bring new perspectives to students and lecturers in sociology and politics.

The great twentieth-century political philosopher examines how Hitler and Stalin gained and maintained power, and the nature of totalitarian states. In the final volume of her classic work The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt focuses on the two genuine forms of the totalitarian state in modern history: the dictatorships of Bolshevism after 1930 and of National Socialism after 1938. Identifying terror as the very essence of this form of government, she discusses the transformation of classes into masses and the use of propaganda in dealing with the nontotalitarian world—and in her brilliant concluding chapter, she analyzes the nature of isolation and loneliness as preconditions for total domination. “The most original and profound—therefore the most valuable—political theoretician of our times.” —Dwight Macdonald, The New Leader