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It’s Political Power, Stupid
Today’s populist revolts against globalization are not only economic in nature—they are fundamentally political. As Hannah Arendt warned, the elevation of economics over politics, especially under imperialism and globalization, leads to the collapse of political judgment and self-determination. Her historical analysis now reads like prophecy: we are witnessing the return of politics in its most raw and terrifying form.04-06-2025
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Hannah Arendt on Totalitarianism
Roger Berkowitz has been teaching a semester-long course on Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism for more than a decade. He is currently leading the Hannah Arendt Center's Virtual Reading Group sessions on the book. In a long essay in The Los Angeles Review of Books, Berkowitz argues that Arendt's brilliant insights into totalitarian movements is an essential guide to today's political world.
03-19-2017
Getting Religion
William Deresiewicz has published a version of the talk he gave at the Hannah Arendt Center's Fall Conference "Real Talk: Difficult Questions About Race, Sex, and Religion." Deresiewicz argues that orthodox political correctness is the new religion on campus.03-12-2017
How Quickly It Can Happen
Timothy Snyder is the latest to remind us "how quickly a modern republic can be transformed into an authoritarian regime."03-05-2017
February 19th, 2017
Masha Gessen rightly cites Hannah Arendt in Gessen's essay in praise of hypocrisy.02-19-2017
February 12th, 2017
Peter Baehr is one of our best Arendt scholars, and his work explicating Arendt's thinking about totalitarianism is invaluable. In his essay "The Theory of Totalitarian Leadership," Baehr argues that the totalitarian leader is only comprehensible as a mouthpiece of what Arendt calls the masses.02-12-2017
February 5th, 2017
David Kaiser writes about his experience being interviewed by Steve Bannon for Bannon's film Generation Zero, a documentary about the financial crisis.02-05-2017