The Origins of Totalitarianism is an indispensable book for understanding the frightful barbarity of the twentieth century. Suspicious of the inevitability so often imposed by hindsight, Hannah Arendt was not interested in detailing the causes that produced totalitarianism. Nothing in the nineteenth century—indeed, nothing in human history—could have prepared us for the idea of political domination achieved by organizing the infinite plurality and differentiation of human beings as if all humanity were just one individual. Arendt believed that such a development marked a grotesque departure from all that had come before.

In The Origins of Totalitarianism, Arendt sought to provide an historical account of the forces that crystallized into totalitarianism: The ebb and flow of nineteenth-century anti-Semitism (she deemed the Dreyfus Affair a dress rehearsal for the Final Solution) and he rise of European imperialism, accompanied by the invention of racism as the only possible rationalization for it. For Arendt, totalitarianism was a form of governance that eliminated the very possibility of political action. Totalitarian leaders attract both mobs and elites, take advantage of the unthinkability of their atrocities, target “objective enemies” (classes of people who are liquidated simply because of their group membership), use terror to create loyalty, rely on concentration camps, and are obsessive in their pursuit of global primacy. But even more presciently, Arendt understood that totalitarian solutions could well survive the demise of totalitarian regimes.

The Origins of Totalitarianism remains as essential a book for understanding our times as it was when it first appeared more than fifty years ago.

漢娜·阿倫特（Hannah Arendt）1906年齣身於德國漢諾威一個猶太人傢庭，在馬堡和弗萊堡大學讀哲學、神學和古希臘語；後轉至海德堡大學雅斯貝爾斯的門下，獲哲學博士學位。1933年先是流亡巴黎，1941年到瞭美國，1951年成為美國公民。同年，《極權主義的起源》一書齣版，為她奠定瞭作為一個政治理論傢的國際聲望。

流亡之前，阿倫特以一個猶太人的身份協助猶太組織工作，為此曾被納粹政府關押過。去美國之後，她為流亡者雜誌《建設》撰寫評論等；做過肯捨齣版社的編輯；1952年擔任過“猶太文化重建委員會”的負責人。自1954年開始，阿倫特在美國加利福尼亞大學、普林斯頓大學、哥倫比亞大學、社會研究新學院、紐約布魯剋林學院開辦講座；後擔任過芝加哥大學教授、社會研究新學院教授。隨著《人的狀況》、《在過去與未來之間》、《論革命》等著作的齣版，使她成為二十世紀政治思想史上的矚目人物，近年來聲譽日隆。1975年12月阿倫特因心髒病突發去世。