Totalitarianism

Abstract

Translator’s note: This text was prepared by Hannah Arendt as a set of notes for a lecture she gave at Oberlin College on October 28, 1954. Despite the fragmentary character, sometimes truncated style, its importance is notable for being in between the publication of The origins of totalitarianism (1951) and The human condition (1958), to indicate the unfolding of Arendt’s interest in the remaining questions of the first work towards its subsequent concerns, which will culminate in the second work, but also in texts such as What is authority? and The crisis in education (both published in 1958 and reprinted in Between past and future, 1961). The original manuscript of the text translated here can be found in the Hannah Arendt Papers, from the following shortcut: [https://www.loc.gov/collections/hannah-arendt-papers/about-this-collection/].