Understanding totalitarianism

"In this study, David D. Roberts provides a challenging new understanding of totalitarianism by focusing on its historically specific dimensions. Rather than dismissing it in terms of national weaknesses or psychological aberrations, he shows how the totalitarian mode of collective action was a response to enduring tensions in the modern mainstream. By providing a fresh understanding of the novel aspirations fueling the three departures, The Totalitarian Experiment in Twentieth-Century Europe illuminates the practices of each regime, showing how the new mode of action yielded a characteristic combination of radicalization, narrowing, myth making - and disastrous failure.

By assessing totalitarianism in a more deeply historical way, this study suggests how we might learn further lessons from this troubling phase of modern political development."--Jacket.