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The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt - Book Summary · 7 Minute Books: Free Book Summaries

• 0:01
  Sam: Hey there, welcome back to 7 Minute Books. I'm Sam, and today we're talking about Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism. Sophie, what made you want to tackle this one?
• 0:12
  Sophie: Morning, Sam. This book is a heavyweight that explains the twentieth century, and it's still relevant today.
• 0:19
  Sam: It is. So where does she even start?
• 0:22
  Sophie: With the nineteenth century. She sees three pillars.
• 0:26
  Sam: Which are?
• 0:28
  Sophie: Antisemitism, imperialism, and the breakdown of the nation-state.
• 0:33
  Sam: Alright.
• 0:35
  Sam: Let's start with antisemitism.
• 0:37
  Sophie: Okay.
• 0:40
  Sam: She says modern antisemitism is political, not religious.
• 0:44
  Sophie: Why?
• 0:46
  Sam: Because Jews were the court Jews, tied to the state as financiers.
• 0:52
  Sophie: So when the state crumbled?
• 0:54
  Sam: They became scapegoats.
• 0:56
  Sophie: That's a good point.
• 0:58
  Sam: Yeah.
• 0:59
  Sam: Then imperialism.
• 1:01
  Sophie: What about it?
• 1:03
  Sam: The colonies were where Europe suspended the rule of law.
• 1:07
  Sophie: And the master race idea?
• 1:09
  Sam: It was born there and came home.
• 1:12
  Sophie: That's terrifying.
• 1:14
  Sam: Yeah.
• 1:15
  Sam: And the third pillar is the mass society.
• 1:18
  Sophie: After the war?
• 1:20
  Sam: Yes. Millions of people became stateless.
• 1:24
  Sophie: So they lost the right to have rights.
• 1:27
  Sam: Exactly. That phrase is the most fundamental thing.
• 1:31
  Sophie: It is.
• 1:33
  Sam: Yeah.
• 1:34
  Sam: So these conditions create a vacuum.
• 1:36
  Sophie: For totalitarian movements.
• 1:39
  Sam: But totalitarianism isn't a normal dictatorship.
• 1:43
  Sophie: How is it different?
• 1:45
  Sam: A tyrant wants power. Totalitarians want to remake reality.
• 1:50
  Sophie: Through ideology?
• 1:52
  Sam: And a science of history.
• 1:54
  Sophie: So any horror is justified.
• 1:57
  Sam: Yes. And then you add terror and isolation.
• 2:01
  Sophie: To break people down.
• 2:03
  Sam: And the camps are the end itself.
• 2:06
  Sam: They kill the legal person, then the moral person, then the individual person. Until you're a living corpse.
• 2:13
  Sophie: That's the banality of evil.
• 2:16
  Sam: Right.
• 2:17
  Sam: My takeaway is that evil is a system, not a personality type.
• 2:22
  Sophie: The whole library is at 7minutebooks.com/app, with over 6,000 fiction and nonfiction titles you can read or listen to in any language. It's $2.99 a month, $9.99 a year, or $19.99 lifetime.
• 2:40
  Sophie: The point of Arendt is that thinking for yourself is a moral act. We'll see you in the next one.