Modernism and totalitarianism : rethinking the intellectual sources of Nazism and Stalinism, 1945 to the present

Resource Information

The work Modernism and totalitarianism : rethinking the intellectual sources of Nazism and Stalinism, 1945 to the present represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in European University Institute Library. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Modernism and totalitarianism : rethinking the intellectual sources of Nazism and Stalinism, 1945 to the present

Title remainder

rethinking the intellectual sources of Nazism and Stalinism, 1945 to the present

Statement of responsibility

Richard Shorten

Creator

• Shorten, Richard, 1977-

Subject

• Europe -- Intellectual life -- 20th century
• Europe -- Intellectual life -- 21st century
• National socialism -- Philosophy
• Political violence
• Europe -- Intellectual life -- 19th century
• Stalin, Joseph, 1879-1953 -- Political and social views
• Superman (Philosophical concept)
• Totalitarianism -- History
• Utopias
• Scientism

Language

eng

Summary

Modernism and Totalitarianism evaluates a broad range of post-1945 scholarship. Totalitarianism, as the common ideological trajectory of Nazism and Stalinism, is dissected as a synthesis of three modernist intellectual currents which determine its particular, inherited character.

Cataloging source

StDuBDS

Index

index present

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography

Summary expansion

What is totalitarianism? In what ways was it modern? Modernism and Totalitarianism argues that conventional theories of totalitarianism are too focused on the state and fail to take note of its ideological trajectory. The book analyses this trajectory, shared by Nazism and Stalinism, the two instances of totalitarianism in its 'classical' form. The ideological trajectory was formed in the interaction of three currents of modernist thought: utopianism, scientism, and revolutionary violence. Developing first of all in the nineteenth century, and in reaction to the Enlightenment mainstream, each of these three currents contributed to the idea of the totalitarian New Man. The book considers a broad range of theoretical positions, including those associated with Cold War liberalism, critical theory, and recent anti-totalitarian thought in France, in order to develop these arguments