Download or read book Anti totalitarianism written by Oliver Kamm and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 127 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout the past century the Left has fractured over the issue of national security. In Anti-Totalitarianism: The Left-Wing Case for a Neoconservative Foreign Policy, Oliver Kamm plots a course for progressive politics by drawing on four pivotal historical debates on the British Left. These episodes comprise: collective security in the 1930s; opposition to Communist expansionism after World War II; the Labour Party's rejection in the 1980s of its earlier anti-Communism; and President Bush's 'war on terror'. Kamm identifies, running through these debates, an authentic left-wing tradition of militant anti-totalitarianism. Against it, however, there has been a recurring temptation for progressives, critical of their own societies' failings, to extenuate or even romanticise the ideological opponents of Western liberal democracies.
Download or read book Pre Modernity Totalitarianism and the Non Banality of Evil written by Steven Saxonberg and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2019-10-23 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a comparative and historical analysis of totalitarianism and considers why Spain became totalitarian during its inquisition but not France; and why Germany became totalitarian during the previous century, but not Sweden. The author pushes the concept of totalitarianism back into the pre-modern period and challenges Hannah Arendt’s notion of the banality of evil. Instead, he presents an alternative framework that can explain why some states become totalitarian and why they induce people to commit evil acts.
Download or read book The Psychology of Totalitarianism written by Mattias Desmet and published by Chelsea Green Publishing. This book was released on 2022-06-23 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world is in the grips of mass formation—a dangerous, collective type of hypnosis—as we bear witness to loneliness, free-floating anxiety, and fear giving way to censorship, loss of privacy, and surrendered freedoms. It is all spurred by a singular, focused crisis narrative that forbids dissident views and relies on destructive groupthink. Desmet’s work on mass formation theory was brought to the world’s attention on The Joe Rogan Experience and in major alternative news outlets around the globe. Read this book to get beyond the sound bites! Totalitarianism is not a coincidence and does not form in a vacuum. It arises from a collective psychosis that has followed a predictable script throughout history, its formation gaining strength and speed with each generation—from the Jacobins to the Nazis and Stalinists—as technology advances. Governments, mass media, and other mechanized forces use fear, loneliness, and isolation to demoralize populations and exert control, persuading large groups of people to act against their own interests, always with destructive results. In The Psychology of Totalitarianism, world-renowned Professor of Clinical Psychology Mattias Desmet deconstructs the societal conditions that allow this collective psychosis to take hold. By looking at our current situation and identifying the phenomenon of “mass formation”—a type of collective hypnosis—he clearly illustrates how close we are to surrendering to totalitarian regimes. With detailed analyses, examples, and results from years of research, Desmet lays out the steps that lead toward mass formation, including: An overall sense of loneliness and lack of social connections and bonds A lack of meaning—unsatisfying “bullsh*t jobs” that don’t offer purpose Free-floating anxiety and discontent that arise from loneliness and lack of meaning Manifestation of frustration and aggression from anxiety Emergence of a consistent narrative from government officials, mass media, etc., that exploits and channels frustration and anxiety In addition to clear psychological analysis—and building on Hannah Arendt’s essential work on totalitarianism, The Origins of Totalitarianism—Desmet offers a sharp critique of the cultural “groupthink” that existed prior to the pandemic and advanced during the COVID crisis. He cautions against the dangers of our current societal landscape, media consumption, and reliance on manipulative technologies and then offers simple solutions—both individual and collective—to prevent the willing sacrifice of our freedoms. “We can honor the right to freedom of expression and the right to self-determination without feeling threatened by each other,” Desmet writes. “But there is a point where we must stop losing ourselves in the crowd to experience meaning and connection. That is the point where the winter of totalitarianism gives way to a spring of life.” "Desmet has an . . . important take on everything that’s happening in the world right now."—Aubrey Marcus, podcast host "[Desmet] is waking a lot of people up to the dangerous place we are now with a brilliant distillation of how we ended up here."—Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. "One of the most important books I’ve ever read."—Ivor Cummins, The Fat Emperor Podcast "This is an amazing book . . . [Desmet is] one of the true geniuses I've spoken to . . . This book has really changed my view on a lot."—Tucker Carlson, speaking on The Will Cain Podcast
Download or read book French Intellectuals Against the Left written by Michael Scott Christofferson and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2004 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christofferson argues that French anti-totalitarianism was the culmination of direct-democratic critiques of communism & revisions of the revolutionary project after 1956. He offers an alternative interpretation for the denunciation of communism & Marxism by the French intellectual left in the late 1970s.
Download or read book Liberalism in the Shadow of Totalitarianism written by David Ciepley and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that it was primarily the encounter with totalitarianism that dissolved the ideals of American progressivism and crystallized the ideals of postwar liberalism. In politics, the ideal of governance by a strong, independent executive was rejected and a politics of contending interest groups was embraced.
Download or read book The Totalitarian Temptation written by Jean-François Revel and published by Penguin Group. This book was released on 1978 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Totalitarianism and Political Religion written by A. Gregor and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2012-03-07 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The totalitarian systems that arose in the twentieth century presented themselves as secular. Yet, as A. James Gregor argues in this book, they themselves functioned as religions. He presents an intellectual history of the rise of these political religions, tracing a set of ideas that include belief that a certain text contains impeccable truths; notions of infallible, charismatic leadership; and the promise of human redemption through strict obedience, selfless sacrifice, total dedication, and unremitting labor. Gregor provides unique insight into the variants of Marxism, Fascism, and National Socialism that dominated our immediate past. He explores the seeds of totalitarianism as secular faith in the nineteenth-century ideologies of Ludwig Feuerbach, Moses Hess, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Giuseppe Mazzini, and Richard Wagner. He follows the growth of those seeds as the twentieth century became host to Leninism and Stalinism, Italian Fascism, and German National Socialism—each a totalitarian institution and a political religion.
Download or read book Hitler Stalin and Mussolini written by Bruce F. Pauley and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-07-02 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fourth edition of Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini: Totalitarianism in the Twentieth Century presents an innovative comparison of the origins, development, and demise of the three forms of totalitarianism that emerged in twentieth-century Europe. Represents the only book that systematically compares all three infamous dictators of the twentieth century Provides the latest scholarship on the wartime goals of Hitler and Stalin as well as new information on the disintegration of the Soviet empire Compares the early lives of Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini, their ideologies, rise to and consolidation of power, and the organization and workings of their dictatorships Features topics organized by themes rather than strictly chronologically Includes a wealth of visual material to support the text, as well as a thorough Bibliographical Essay compiled by the author
Download or read book Democracy Incorporated written by Sheldon S. Wolin and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-29 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Democracy is struggling in America--by now this statement is almost cliché. But what if the country is no longer a democracy at all? In Democracy Incorporated, Sheldon Wolin considers the unthinkable: has America unwittingly morphed into a new and strange kind of political hybrid, one where economic and state powers are conjoined and virtually unbridled? Can the nation check its descent into what the author terms "inverted totalitarianism"? Wolin portrays a country where citizens are politically uninterested and submissive--and where elites are eager to keep them that way. At best the nation has become a "managed democracy" where the public is shepherded, not sovereign. At worst it is a place where corporate power no longer answers to state controls. Wolin makes clear that today's America is in no way morally or politically comparable to totalitarian states like Nazi Germany, yet he warns that unchecked economic power risks verging on total power and has its own unnerving pathologies. Wolin examines the myths and mythmaking that justify today's politics, the quest for an ever-expanding economy, and the perverse attractions of an endless war on terror. He argues passionately that democracy's best hope lies in citizens themselves learning anew to exercise power at the local level. Democracy Incorporated is one of the most worrying diagnoses of America's political ills to emerge in decades. It is sure to be a lightning rod for political debate for years to come. Now with a new introduction by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Chris Hedges, Democracy Incorporated remains an essential work for understanding the state of democracy in America.
Download or read book The Origins of Totalitarianism written by Hannah Arendt and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 1973 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "How could such a book speak so powerfully to our present moment? The short answer is that we, too, live in dark times, even if they are different and perhaps less dark, and "Origins" raises a set of fundamental questions about how tyranny can arise and the dangerous forms of inhumanity to which it can lead." Jeffrey C. Isaac, The Washington Post 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 our 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.
Download or read book The 19th Wife written by David Ebershoff and published by Random House. This book was released on 2008-08-05 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Faith, I tell them, is a mystery, elusive to many, and never easy to explain. Sweeping and lyrical, spellbinding and unforgettable, David Ebershoff’s The 19th Wife combines epic historical fiction with a modern murder mystery to create a brilliant novel of literary suspense. It is 1875, and Ann Eliza Young has recently separated from her powerful husband, Brigham Young, prophet and leader of the Mormon Church. Expelled and an outcast, Ann Eliza embarks on a crusade to end polygamy in the United States. A rich account of a family’s polygamous history is revealed, including how a young woman became a plural wife. Soon after Ann Eliza’s story begins, a second exquisite narrative unfolds–a tale of murder involving a polygamist family in present-day Utah. Jordan Scott, a young man who was thrown out of his fundamentalist sect years earlier, must reenter the world that cast him aside in order to discover the truth behind his father’s death. And as Ann Eliza’s narrative intertwines with that of Jordan’ s search, readers are pulled deeper into the mysteries of love and faith. Praise for The 19th Wife “This exquisite tour de force explores the dark roots of polygamy and its modern-day fruit in a renegade cult . . . Ebershoff brilliantly blends a haunting fictional narrative by Ann Eliza Young, the real-life 19th “rebel” wife of Mormon leader Brigham Young, with the equally compelling contemporary narrative of fictional Jordan Scott, a 20-year-old gay man. . . . With the topic of plural marriage and its shattering impact on women and powerless children in today's headlines, this novel is essential reading for anyone seeking understanding of the subject.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Download or read book Modernism and Totalitarianism written by Richard Shorten and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-11-15 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is totalitarianism? In what ways was it modern? Modernism and Totalitarianism argues that conventional theories of totalitarianism are too focused on the state and fail to take note of its ideological trajectory. The book analyses this trajectory, shared by Nazism and Stalinism, the two instances of totalitarianism in its "classical" form. The ideological trajectory was formed in the interaction of three currents of modernist thought: utopianism, scientism, and revolutionary violence. Developing first of all in the nineteenth century, and in reaction to the Enlightenment mainstream, each of these three currents contributed to the idea of the totalitarian New Man. The book considers a broad range of theoretical positions, including those associated with Cold War liberalism, critical theory, and recent anti-totalitarian thought in France, in order to develop these arguments.
Download or read book Totalitarianisms The Closed Society and Its Friends A History of Crossed Languages written by Juan Francisco Fuentes and published by Ed. Universidad de Cantabria. This book was released on 2019-04-29 with total page 462 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is striking that the main political concept coined by the century of democracy has been totalitarianism. Since its birth in fascist Italy in the 1920s, the term has made a long journey throughout different countries and periods. After representing the fascination for dictatorships during the interwar years, totalitarianism became a key concept of the ‘war of words’ waged between democracy and communism until the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was ‘a hot word for a Cold War’, as termed by the author of this book to convey the importance of this contest of crossed languages, which also included images, symbols and other forms of ‘senso-propaganda’. The Closed Society and Its Friendshighlights the role played by language in the building of a dystopian civilization conceived as an alternative to the open society created by liberalism. The book analyses the dimension of totalitarianisms, from fascism and Nazism to communism, as political religions with some common features, such as the cult of personality and the conception of society as a community of believers. This fascinating essay on the dark side of the 20th century ends with a disturbing epilogue: ‘Is totalitarianism back?’
Download or read book The Study of Totalitarianism written by Howard D. Mehlinger and published by . This book was released on 1965 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Jacques Maritain and Human Rights written by Daniele Lorenzini and published by St. Augustine's Press. This book was released on 2021-04-16 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The influence of Jacques Maritain in the post-war era's embrace of human rights is undeniable. Scholars, however, overlook a major shift in his use of language. Daniele Lorenzini argues the turn from Maritain's use of the expression "rights of the person" to "the rights of man" is packed with meaning. Reconstructing the historical context in which this shift occurred is key to fully grasping what Maritain accomplished. It is also essential if one seeks to defend Maritain against accusation that he enacted a victory of the American and French modern revolutionary spirit over ecclesiastical teaching when he legitimized "the rights of man." The notion that Maritain may have taken up the cause of the civic-secular citizen when these secularly articulated rights were consciously never embraced by Catholic magisterium (that instead promulgated the rights of the person) merits serious attention. Lorenzini reconstructs Maritain's historical context and theoretical trajectory shaped by particular circumstances--most evidently World War II, but also his time in the United States and his work with the Committee of Catholics for Human Rights. Lorenzini is not suggesting that Maritain staged a siege of Catholic thought, but that he did in fact lay the foundations for turning the conversation away from the tenets upheld by ecclesiastical authority on the concept of rights toward an articulation that more pointedly connects such rights to the actual possession and protection. How and why this happens, Lorenzini demonstrates, is "grasped only if critically situated in the union of history of history and biography that makes this possible and encourages it, as does Maritain's residency in the United States--an exile that obliged the French philosopher to render a deep seated account of the unbelievable (and tragic) political and intellectual panorama." In short, Maritain set in motion the innovative redefinition of the elements that would soon be known as the human rights. But to Maritain these elements were always proper to the new ideal of the "vitally Christian" political city, the city "founded essentially on the two 'pillars' of democracy and the safeguarding of the rights of man." What originally began as a purely linguistic investigation of Maritain's use of terminology has led Lorenzini to ask whether Maritain himself was won over from the act of conversing of rights associated with personhood to the real-time struggle for these rights, an evolution not just of Maritain's language but of the man himself. Lorenzini's work is a formidable contribution to the literature pertaining to the period of post-war thought and Maritain on human rights. In his labors to carefully digest the full span of Maritain's intellectual trajectory on rights, Lorenzini brings Jacques Maritain alive both as a man of vision but also fervent action, and defends him from critics and historians that accuse him of spurning Church teaching and papal authority. As Lorenzini's study shows, the human rights of the secular-civic world--whose lineage scholars attribute in large part to Maritain--were always derived from Catholic teaching and intended for use in constructing the truly Christian city. This work stands out in a vast repertoire of work on the subject of Jacques Maritain, and accomplishes both high level philosophical and historical sleuthing. It is of particular interest to American readers who may not fully realize the depth of Maritain's maturation of thought during his residency in the United States. This is an astounding read for historians, scholars of political philosophy, and students of Jacques Maritain.
Download or read book French Intellectuals Against the Left written by Michael Scott Christofferson and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2004-06-01 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the latter half of the 1970s, the French intellectual Left denounced communism, Marxism, and revolutionary politics through a critique of left-wing totalitarianism that paved the way for today's postmodern, liberal, and moderate republican political options. Contrary to the dominant understanding of the critique of totalitarianism as an abrupt rupture induced by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago, Christofferson argues that French anti-totalitarianism was the culmination of direct-democratic critiques of communism and revisions of the revolutionary project after 1956. The author's focus on the direct-democratic politics of French intellectuals offers an important alternative to recent histories that seek to explain the course of French intellectual politics by France's apparent lack of a liberal tradition.
Download or read book In Search of the Liberal Moment written by S. Sawyer and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-04-08 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores a series of challenging new perspectives on the origins, development, and legacy of France's 'liberal moment' during the second half of the twentieth century. It surveys a significant shift in interest regarding socio-political philosophy and culture, with the 1970s emergence of a blossoming French curiosity about liberalism and liberal thought. While liberalism had played an important role in French political debate prior to this period, liberal voices were often disregarded. It was not until this newfound fascination with liberalism by French intellectuals—spanning from the second left to the new right—that a French liberal revival truly occurred. In Search of the Liberal Moment addresses this revival, its resultant resuscitation of nineteenth-century authors like Tocqueville and Constant, its relationship with the contemporary rise of neoliberalism in Britain and the US, and how its adherents used liberalism to rethink the past, present, and future of modern democracy.
