Antisemitism : Part One of The Origins of Totalitarianism

The first volume of Arendt’s celebrated three-part study of the philosophical origins of the totalitarian mind. This volume focuses on the rise of antisemitism in Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Index. Library Journal Schocken's is the first hardcover edition of Arendt's 1951 volume to be available in decades. The book begins its study with European anti-Semitism in the 1800s and moves up to Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany, which the author fled in the 1930s. This edition sports a new introduction by Pulitzer Prize winner Samantha Powers. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information. 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'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 institutions and operations of totalitarian movements, focusing on the two genuine forms of totalitarian government in her time—Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia—which she adroitly recognizes were two sides of the same coin, rather than opposing philosophies of Right and Left. From this vantage point, she discusses the evolution of classes into masses, the role of propaganda in dealing with the nontotalitarian world, the use of terror, and the nature of isolation and loneliness as preconditions for total domination. Recognized on publication as the definitive account of its subject, [*The Origins of Totalitarianism*](/works/OL10460640W) remains the foundation for continuing discussion. In this first volume of her monumental study Dr. Arendt traces the rise of antisemitism in Central and Western European Jewish history in the nineteenth century, delineating the part Jews played in the development of the nation-state on one hand and in Gentile society on the other. With the appearance of the first antisemitic parties in the 1870's and Dr. Arendt States, the way was opened that ended in the "final solution." And she views the Dreyfus affair as "a kind of dress rehearsal for the performance of our time"— the first characteristically modern use of antisemitism as an instrument of public policy and of hysteria as a political weapon. acteristic of these times, when Jewish individuals and the first small wealthy Jewish communities were more powerful than at any time in the nineteenth century, was the frankness with which their privileged status and their right to it was discussed, and the careful testimony of the authorities to the importance of their services to the state. There was not the slightest doubt or ambiguity about the connection between services rendered and privileges granted. Recognized since publication as the definitive account of the philosophical origins of the totalitarian mind, this work remains the foundation for further study of its subject