The year 1951 was a banner year for the publication of several classic books in the areas of politics, philosophy and religion. For example, Hannah Arendt published her Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt Brace), which brought together a number of previously published essays on the subjects of imperialism, antisemitism and totalitarianism. In this book Arendt is better at painting a chilling portrait of the totalitarian regime, particularly that of nazi Germany, than of actually accounting for its origins. Yet, coming as it did so soon after the end of Hitler's rule and in the midst of the worst of the Cold War, this book helped to set the tone for much of the subsequent reflection on the nature of totalitarian rule. Many observers were not even sure that totalitarianism was all that distinctive. Perhaps it was simply a modern form of tyranny. But reading Arendt's account left little doubt. Something different was at work in Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Soviet Union and Mao's China.

Are there still totalitarian regimes in the world today? China seems no longer to be such, even if the same party is in power. The Soviet Union passed into history nearly a dozen years ago. It's possible that Saddam Hussein's Iraq could be classified as totalitarian. In any event, it was certainly based on widespread terror. Perhaps it's the terror that most marks such a regime: the general feeling that nothing can be allowed to stay put, to settle into a status quo, that no one can be allowed to be at ease even in their own homes. Totalitarianism blurs the boundary between public and private by making everything public, by deprecating everything that does not quite fit into the official ideology. It is pure movement fighting against every perceived staticity.

I will be posting notices about other books published in that important year just after the middle of the last century.