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Introduces totalitarianism, discusses the social, political, economic, religious, and cultural effects, and examines various totalitarian leaders' ideas.

Considers the utility of the term totalitarianism & the return of antitotalitarian rhetoric in the current struggle against terrorism, providing a historical perspective to shed light on its protean meaning & the related intellectual debate on its definition. Historical moments of totalitarianism are discussed: 1920s "antifascism"; the response to the Hitler-Stalin pact; the term's post-1947 renewal as anti-Sovietism/anticommunism; the post-Vietnam-era (1975-1980) response to violent aspects of the new Left; & the period from 1993 to the run up to the 2003 Iraq War, called the "antitotalitarianism of the 68ers." The political facets of the debate over totalitarianism are highlighted, & it is argued that antitotalitarian rhetoric often obscures political & moral ambiguities. D. Edelman

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the debate over the American war in Iraq, revived talk of totalitarianism among liberals and leftists thinking about radical Islamists and Middle East dictatorships. With varying degrees of enthusiasm, respected former dissidents such as Vaclav Havel and Adam Michnik and distinguished intellectuals in Europe and America such as Paul Berman, André Glucksmann, Richard Herzinger, Christopher Hitchens, Michael Ignatieff, as well as Nobel Peace Prize recipient José Ramos-Horta justified, if not military intervention, then an aggressive and principled policy toward Saddam Hussein's regime—largely on liberal-humanitarian grounds, invoking the imperative of resisting totalitarianism. Though he explicitly opposed the unilateral use of military force, Joschka Fischer, then Germany's foreign minister, spoke of a "third totalitarianism"—after Nazism and communism—"as the major challenge facing the international community in the twenty-first century." In December 2004, in "An Argument for a New Liberalism, a Fighting Faith," Peter Beinart, editor of the New Republic, complained that "three years after September 11 brought the United States face-to-face with a new totalitarian threat, liberalism has still not been fundamentally reshaped by the experience." British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw called terrorism the "new totalitarianism," the world's greatest threat to democracy. The return of this term is instructive, because its history is not at all as luminescent as its advocates would have us believe.

"Totalitarianism" is a powerful word rich in historical associations and rebounding in current political usage. The four books under review reflect both the term's range of usage and the enduring fascination with the phenomena it described. Totalitarianism's initial terminological siblings, "nazism" and "communism," are applied chiefly to the original historical subjects that generated them. A close political cousin, "fascism," long ago escaped its close ideological family and is applied to everything from brutal police to road hogs. In contrast, "totalitarianism," formerly confined to a narrow political as opposed to a cultural context, is suddenly in play. In recent issues of the New York Times, David Brooks excoriates Iraqi proponents of "totalitarian theocracy" (5/16/2004); President Bush deplores the terrorists' "totalitarian ideology" (5/29/05), and Condoleezza Rice abhors Iran as a "totalitarian state" (5/29/2005). A Central Asian despot is characterized as a "fragile totalitarian" in a feature by David E. Sangler (5/29/2005), and the group of army officers (the Military Council for Justice and Democracy) that overthrew President Maouya Sidi Ahmed Taya in Mauritania in August 2005 defend their decision "to put an end to the totalitarian practices of the deposed regime." Totalitarianism is back, but what does it mean?

"When Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin first came to power in the 1930s their regimes were considered by many to represent a new and perplexing phenomenon. They were labelled 'totalitarian'. But is 'totalitarianism' genuinely new, or is the word just another name for something old and familiar, namely tyranny? This is the first question to be addressed by Alan Haworth in this book, which explores the relevance of philosophy to the understanding of totalitarianism. In the course of the discussion, definitions are tested. Is it coherent to think of totalitarianism as the imposition of a 'total state', or of 'total control'? Could it even be that the idea of totalitarianism is a 'non-concept'? Examining the work of the totalitarian philosophers Giovanni Gentile and Carl Schmitt, the idea of 'totalitarianism by other means' as represented in dystopian fiction, and the philosophy of Hannah Arendt, Totalitarianism and Philosophy is essential reading for all students and scholars of political philosophy"--

"Totalitarianism: The Basics is an easy to read introduction into the main concepts, ideologies, and regimes associated with totalitarianism. Starting with an overview of how scholars have attempted to define totalitarianism, Phillip W. Gray begins with an examination of the various types of terms used, helping the reader think about how these terms do - and do not - apply to different ideologies and governments. Easily accessible language and the use of numerous examples aids readers in seeing the connections between certain types of ideologies and some forms of organization/movements in their relation to historically well-known totalitarian regimes. Gray concludes with the tools necessary to think through how to distinguish between an actual (or potential) totalitarian system and regimes that, while oppressive or authoritarian, would not be totalitarian in nature. A rich bibliography containing additional readings bookend the text. Totalitarianism: The Basics offers an essential introduction for students from all backgrounds seeking to understand totalitarianism and for general readers with an interest in political ideologies and extremism. For those knowledgeable in this field, it adds conceptual relevance and the varieties of ways of thinking about the term"--