Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) first argued that there were continuities between the age of European imperialism and the age of fascism in Europe inThe Origins of Totalitarianism (1951). She claimed that theories of race, notions of racial and cultural superiority, and the right of superior races to expand territorially were themes that connected the white settler colonies, the other imperial possessions, and the fascist ideologies of post-Great War Europe. These claims have rarely been taken up by historians. Only in recent years has the work of scholars such as Jürgen Zimmerer and A. Dirk Moses begun to show in some detail that Arendt was correct.

This collection does not seek merely to expound Arendts opinions on these subjects; rather, it seeks to use her insights as the jumping-off point for further investigations including ones critical of Arendt into the ways in which race, imperialism, slavery and genocide are linked, and the ways in which these terms have affected the United States, Europe, and the colonised world.

Richard H. King is Professor (emeritus) of American Intellectual History at the University of Nottingham. He is the author ofThe Party of Eros (1972),A Southern Renaissance (1980),Civil Rights and the Idea of Freedom (1992),Race, Culture and the Intellectuals, 1940-1970 (2004), and has co-editedDixie Debates (1995) with Helen Taylor.

IntroductionRichard H. King andDan Stone

PART I: IMPERIALISM AND COLONIALISM

Chapter 1. Race Power, Freedom, and the Democracy of Terror inGerman Racialist ThoughtElisa von Joeden-Forgey

Chapter 2. Race Thinking and Racism in Hannah ArendtsThe Origins of TotalitarianismKathryn T. Gines

Chapter 3. When the Real Crime Began: Hannah ArendtsThe Origins of Totalitarianism and the Dignity of the Western Philosophical TraditionRobert Bernasconi

Chapter 4. Race and Bureaucracy Revisited: Hannah Arendts Recent Re-Emergence in African StudiesChristopher J. Lee

Chapter 5. On Pain of Extinction: Laws of Nature and History in Darwin, Marx, and ArendtTony Barta

PART II: NATION AND RACE

Chapter 6. The Refractory Legacy of Decolonization: Revisiting Arendt on ViolenceNed Curthoys

Chapter 7. Anti-Semitism, the Bourgeoisie, and the Self-Destruction of the Nation-StateMarcel Stoetzler

Chapter 8. Eichmanns Mentality and Post-totalitarian PredicamentsVlasta Jalu¨iè

PART III: INTELLECTUAL GENEALOGIES AND LEGACIES

Chapter 9. Hannah Arendt on Totalitarianism: Moral Equivalence and Degrees of Evil in Modern Political ViolenceRichard Shorten

Chapter 10. Hannah Arendt, Biopolitics, and the Problem of ViolenceAndre Duarte

Chapter 11. The Subterranean Stream of Western HistoryRobert Eaglestone

Chapter 12. Hannah Arendt and the Old New ScienceSteven Douglas Maloney

Chapter 13. The Holocaust and the HumanDan Stone

Conclusion: Arendt between Past and FutureRichard H. King

Bibliography Contributors Index