Imperialism
Part Two of The Origins of Totalitarianism
Hannah Arendt
- 218 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
Imperialism
Part Two of The Origins of Totalitarianism
Hannah Arendt
About This Book
In the second volume of The Origins of Totalitarianism, the political theorist traces the decline of European colonialism and the outbreak of WWI.
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 second volume, Imperialism, Dr. Hannah Arendt examines the cruel epoch of declining European colonial imperialism from 1884 to the outbreak of the First World War. Through portraits of Disraili, Cecil Rhodes, Gobineau, Proust, and T.E. Lawrence, Arendt illustrates how this era ended with the decline of the nation-state and the disintegration of Europe's class society. These two events, Arendt argues, generated totalitarianism, which in turn produced the Holocaust.
"The most original and profoundâtherefore the most valuableâpolitical theorist of our times."âDwight MacDonald, The New Leader
Frequently asked questions
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Footnotes
For a historical survey of the Irish question that includes the latest developments, compare the excellent unbiased study of Nicholas Mansergh, Britain and Ireland (in Longmanâs Pamphlets on the British Commonwealth, London, 1942).
See also the very good introductory remarks on the foundations of the French Empire in The French Colonial Empire (in Information Department Papers No. 25, published by The Royal Institute of International Affairs, London, 1941), pp. 9 ff. âThe aim is to assimilate colonial peoples to the French people, or, where this is not possible in more primitive communities, to âassociateâ them, so that more and more the difference between la France metropole and la France dâoutremer shall be a geographical difference and not a fundamental one.â
This system was quickly abandoned and the Netherlands Indies, for a while, became âthe admiration of all colonizing nations.â (Sir Hesketh Bell, former Governor of Uganda, N...