Hannah Arendt · Politics

The Origins of Totalitarianism

Arendt’s first great book asked how a wholly new form of tyranny - Nazism and Stalinism - became possible. Her answer: total terror, an ideology that explains everything, and the weaponizing of human loneliness.

What you'll be able to recall

You learned that Arendt distinguished totalitarianism from ordinary tyranny by its use of total terror, all-explaining ideology, and mass loneliness. Explain in your own words why loneliness , of all things, was central to her account.

Leads to Montesquieu.

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