Book Reviews : The Origins of Totalitarianism. By HANNAH ARENDT. (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co. 1951. Pp. ix, 477. $6.75.)

• Author: Currin V. Shields
• Published date: 01 September 1951
• Date: 01 September 1951
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/106591295100400318
• Subject Matter: Articles

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The Origins of Totalitarianism. By HANNAH ARENDT. (New York: Har-
court, Brace and Co. 1951. Pp. ix, 477. $6.75.)
The publisher informs us that: &dquo;This book lays bare for the first
time the roots of twentieth-century man’s political and human tragedy:
totalitarianism.&dquo; Yet Miss Arendt’s book is of scant interest to one eager
for a succinct and penetrating historical analysis of the origins of modern
totalitarianism. Though the author professes to be probing for its &dquo;roots,&dquo;
she focuses her attention almost entirely on German experience, she
treats Soviet communism as peripheral, and she dismisses Italian fascism
as not really being totalitarian anyway (p. 303). But even as a study of
the background of German national socialism, Miss Arendt’s book is
seriously wanting.
The volume is divided into three main parts: Antisemitism, Imperial-
ism, and Totalitarianism. This neat, tripartite division is not reflected in
a comparable scheme of disquisitional organization. Just what the rela-
tion is between antisemitism and imperialism and totalitarianism the
author never makes clear to the reader. In her Concluding Remarks,
she struggles desperately to integrate the random remarks that burden
the preceding four hundred pages, but never does she succeed in advancing
an intelligible thesis. Indeed, the only point that emerges clearly out
of the welter of words is that the author hates antisemitism, imperialism,
and totalitarianism with a bitter passion. This is understandable, but
unfortunately the author’s antipathies do not endow the book with the
coherence it so imperatively needs.
This book lays bare a human tragedy, but the tragedy is of a differ-
ent order than the one the publisher indicates on the dust jacket. It is
the tragedy of sterile erudition. Miss Arendt has quarried from many
musty volumes enough data to write a dozen learned monographs, and
she has impressively displayed all the paraphernalia historiographers
utilize in plying their...