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"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"--

The distinctive quality of totalitarianism is its institutionalized revolutionary zeal. It is this feature which distinguishes it from other dictatorial systems. It can be defined as a system where technologically advanced instruments of pol'al power are wielded without restraint by centralized leadership of an elite movement, for the purpose of effecting a total soc revolution, including the conditioning of man, on the basis of certain arbitrary ideological assumptions proclaimed by the leadership, in an atmosphere of coerced unanimity of the entire pop. The totalitarian qualities of the system manifest themselves some time after the seizure of power, when the regime proceeds to engage in soc engineering according to its ideological predispositions. It is then that some of the 'irrational' aberrations of totalitarianism, such as terror, manifest themselves. Nonetheless, these 'irrational' qualities are not inherent in all phases of totalitarian development & a 'rational' totalitarianism can be conceived, without the 'rational' features produced for instance by technocratic considerations leading inevitably towards a democratic development. The factors which would prevent such an evolution are the party, the ideology & the goal-oriented & centrally directed economy. Furthermore, the pol'al process itself cannot be fully made subject to technocratic rationality. (AA-IPSA). Adapted from the source document.

Explores Martin Heidegger's philosophical stance with regard to National Socialism, his support of the ideology through the early 1930s, only to see its defeat in 1934, with its transition from an "emerging" totalitarianism of the folk-ish revolution to the hierarchical "towering" totalitarianism of Hitler's state in both ideology & domestic policy. Even then, he did not accept what had happened until 1935. With this realization, he became uncertain about his own judgment as to the institutional source of truth. He turned increasingly, though seemingly without conscious intent, toward an epistemology leading to a secularized structure in which the revelation of truth was taken over by "Being." His "unconcealment of Being" can perhaps today serve as an antidote to blind belief in either the Almighty or the Western "Subject" obsessed with identifying itself. Considered in this light is whether the West will ever understand that its intolerant "God-given" values may prevent it from seeing as an acceptable alternative the "equally God-given" values of Islam. J. Stanton

Zygmunt Bauman's (1989) assertion that the Holocaust was engendered by the bureaucratic rationality of the Germans is challenged, arguing that his interpretation of the linkage between modernity & the Holocaust is based on a distorted understanding of totalitarianism. Further, Bauman is charged with identifying modernity in relation to an instrumental rationality. Bauman's spurious understanding of modernity is connected to Max Horkheimer & Theodor Adorno's (1972 translation) text that associates modernity with totalitarianism & Herbert Marcuse's (1960) treatment of the combat between dialectical & positivistic forms of reason in the modern world. Identified are seven essential characteristics of modernity, including universalized rights of citizens & capitalist rationalization. The search for an autonomous civil society is held responsible for the development of modern civilization & its defining characteristic -- the normalization of perpetual change. The conception of the modern city as promulgated by the Bolshevik Revolution is perceived as a response to Western culture. It is concluded that totalitarianism is the product of a form of anticapitalist domination rather than of instrumental rationality. J. W. Parker