scholarly journals Hannah Arendt and Marxist Theories of Totalitarianism

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Nicholas Devlin

This article offers a new reading of the place of Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism in the history of totalitarianism theory. Building on a novel genealogy of Marxist theories of totalitarianism, the article traces this inheritance into Arendt's early work on the subject, demonstrating that her “languages” (in the Pocockian sense) were basically continuous with those of interwar Marxism. The article proceeds in three stages. First, it reconstructs two core languages of interwar Marxism (imperialism and Bonapartism). Second, it shows how these languages underpinned a central controversy in Marxist theories of totalitarianism during World War II, a debate conducted in the languages of imperialism and Bonapartism and turning on the relationship between the political and the economic. Third, it shows that Arendt wrote in these languages and contributed to the same debate. In conclusion, this striking affinity with Marxism in Arendt's early work is contrasted with the emergence of classical totalitarianism theory—a project with which Arendt was soon eager to associate herself and which makes a unified and consistent reading of The Origins of Totalitarianism so difficult.

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 494-499
Author(s):  
Destin Jenkins

This essay revisits Making the Second Ghetto to consider what Arnold Hirsch argued about the relationship between race, money, and the ghetto. It explores how Hirsch’s analysis of this relationship was at once consistent with those penned by other urban historians and distinct from those interested in the political economy of the ghetto. Although moneymaking was hardly the main focus, Hirsch’s engagement with “Vampire” rental agencies and panic peddlers laid the groundwork for an analysis that treats the post–World War II metropolis as a crucial node in the history of racial capitalism. Finally, this essay offers a way to connect local forms of violence to the kinds of constraints imposed by financiers far removed from the city itself.


2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 82-90
Author(s):  
Boris Valentinovich Petelin ◽  
Vladilena Vadimovna Vorobeva

In the political circles of European countries attempts to reformat the history of World War II has been continuing. Poland is particularly active; there at the official level, as well as in the articles and in the speeches of politicians, political scientists and historians crude attacks against Russia for its commitment to objective assessments of the military past are allowed. Though, as the authors of this article mention, Russian politicians have not always been consistent in evaluation of Soviet-Polish relationships, hoping to reach a certain compromise. If there were any objections, they were mostly unconvincing. Obviously, as the article points, some statements and speeches are not without emotional colouring that is characteristic, when expressing mutual claims. However, the deliberate falsification of historical facts and evidence, from whatever side it occurs, does not meet the interests of the Polish and Russian peoples, in whose memory the heroes of the Red Army and the Polish Resistance have lived and will live. The authors point in the conclusions that it is hard to achieve mutual respect to key problems of World War II because of the overlay of the 18th – 19th centuries, connected with the “partitions of Poland”, the existence of the “Kingdom of Poland” as part of the Russian Empire, Soviet-Polish War of 1920. There can be only one way out, as many Russian and Polish scientists believe – to understand the complex twists and turns of Russo-Polish history, relying on the documents. Otherwise, the number of pseudoscientific, dishonest interpretations will grow.


2021 ◽  
Vol VII (1) ◽  
pp. 61-76
Author(s):  
Ashley Hlebinsky

In 1953, Ruger released a single-action revolver—patterned after the original Colt Single Action Army. Whilst some changes had been made, this firearm possessed, for all intents and purposes, the handling characteristics of the original Colt design. As a result, the safety precaution was as per the original: the revolver should be loaded with five rounds, rather than six, and the hammer positioned such that it rested over an empty chamber. Despite outlining the recommended carry methods in their instruction manual, Ruger became the subject of product liability lawsuits from purchasers who incorrectly loaded and carried the firearm, resulting in negligent discharges. This article explores the history of Colt-type single-action revolvers in the post-World War II period, analyses the availability of historic mechanical safety mechanisms for double-action revolvers in the 19th and 20th centuries, and summarises the patents on single-action safeties that Ruger had received by 1973. That year, the company discontinued their initial line of Single Action Army-style revolvers—known as ‘Old Models’—for a visibly similar, but mechanically different, ‘New Model’ line of single-action revolvers featuring newly developed safety mechanisms.


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 592-598

Thus, by the end of 1948, belief in the value of oxygen therapy was universal. The newborn infant was thought to be more resistant to higher pressures of oxygen than the adult, and oxygen was accepted as being generally beneficial to the premature infant. Pediatricians concerned with mortality, neurological deficits such as cerebral diplegia and mental retardation, or with cyanotic attacks and apnea had a firm rationale for their strong emphasis on prompt and vigorous oxygen therapy as a major advance in the care of premature infants. Better incubators and piped-in oxygen in the new premature centers permitted better care after World War II. The relationship between RLF and oxygen therapy was neither known nor suspected.


Author(s):  
Nicola Phillips

This chapter focuses on the political economy of development. It first considers the different (and competing) ways of thinking about development that have emerged since the end of World War II, laying emphasis on modernization, structuralist, and underdevelopment theories, neo-liberalism and neo-statism, and ‘human development’, gender, and environmental theories. The chapter proceeds by exploring how particular understandings of development have given rise to particular kinds of development strategies at both the national and global levels. It then examines the relationship between globalization and development, in both empirical and theoretical terms. It also describes how conditions of ‘mal-development’ — or development failures — both arise from and are reinforced by globalization processes and the ways in which the world economy is governed.


2002 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
pp. 389-414 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles V. Hawley

Between 1939 and 1945 several Hollywood studios produced significant films set in the war-torn Philippines, including Bataan (MGM, 1943), So Proudly We Hail (Paramount, 1943),and Back to Bataan (RKO,1943). Although these films immediately preceded Philippines independence in 1946, they do not position the Philippines as a soon-to-be autonomous nation. Instead, these films reaffirm, and even celebrate, the unequal colonial power relationship that marked the history of U.S. occupation of the archipelago. A careful reading of these films, which is the subject of this article, reveals the stamina of this colonial ideology (colonial uplift, tutelage, and nation-building) that legitimized U.S. colonial rule in the Phillapines and dates back to the turn of the century. What the perpetuation of this ideology suggests is the postwar neocolonial relationship between the two nations that U.S. government officials anticipated. This revised neocolonial ideology is expressed through the racialized and gendered images of Filipino characters and their interaction with U.S. American characters. The U.S. government attempted to control such images as part of its wartime propaganda, but had to rely on the voluntary compliance of the major Hollywood studios. While the Filipinos in films like Back to Bataan, made at the war's end, appear to challenge the racist stereotypes of prior films, they are re-inscribed by a neocolonial form of U.S. supremacy—— framed as wartime U.S. guidance and Filipino dependency.


Author(s):  
Barry Riley

This book discusses the 220-year history of the political and humanitarian uses of American food as a tool of both foreign and domestic policy. During these years, food aid has been used as a weapon against the expansion of bolshevism after World War I and communism after World War II, a cudgel to force policy changes by recalcitrant recipient governments, a method for balancing disputes between Israel and Egypt, a backdoor means of increasing military aid to Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War, a signal of support to friendly governments, and a resource to help achieve economic development in food-insecure countries. At home, international food aid has, at times, been used to dump troublesome food surpluses abroad and has served politicians as a tool to secure the votes of farming constituents and the political support of agriculture-sector lobbyists, commodity traders, transporters, and shippers. Most important in the minds of many, it has been the most visible—and most popular—means of providing humanitarian aid to tens of millions of hungry men, women, and children confronted, on distant shores, by war, terrorism, and natural cataclysms and the resulting threat—if not the reality—of famine and death. The book investigates the little-known, not well-understood, and often highly contentious political processes that have converted fields of grains, crops of pulses, and herds of livestock into the tools of U.S. government policy.


Author(s):  
Sally M. Horrocks

Commentators and politicians have frequently argued that the performance of the British economy could be significantly improved by paying more attention to the translation of the results of scientific research into new products and processes. They have frequently suggested that deficiencies in achieving this are part of a long-standing national malaise and regularly point to a few well-worn examples to support their contention. What are conspicuous by their absence from these debates are detailed and contextual studies that actually examine the nature of the interactions between scientists and industry and how these changed over time. This paper provides one such study by examining three aspects of the relationship between the Royal Society, its Fellows and industrial R&D during the mid twentieth century. It looks first at the enthusiasm for industrial research to be found across the political spectrum after World War II before examining the election as Fellows of the Royal Society of men who worked in industry at the time of their election. Finally it considers the extent to which industrial R&D was incorporated into the way in which the Royal Society presented itself to the outside world through its Conversazione. Despite the absence of formal structures to translate the results of the work of scientists employed in other institutional contexts to industry, there is much evidence to indicate that there were plenty of other opportunities for the exchange of information to take place.


2008 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-85
Author(s):  
Nina Gerlach

The relationship between city and garden appears in many feature films in order to visualize narrative dualisms. In particular, the character of the border - as a fundamental medial characteristic of gardens - determines the meaning of the represented space. According to the Western representation of ideal places and the historically-developed antagonism of city and garden, the border defines the latter as the diametrically opposed utopian antithesis to urban life. This antagonism is used, for example, in The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970) in the political context of World War II, or as in Being There (1979), embedded in a philosophical discourse centered on Voltaire and Sartre.


Author(s):  
Oskar Stanisław Czarnik

The subject of this article is an overview of Polish publishing in the exile during the World War II and first post-war years. The literary activity was mostly linked to the cultural tradition of the Second Polish Republic. The author describes this phenomenon quantitatively and presents the number of books published in the respective years. He also tries to explain which external factors, not only political and military, but also financial and organizational, affected publications of Polish books around the world. The subject of the debate is also geography of the Polish publishing. It is connected with a long term migration of different groups of people living in exile. The author not only points out the areas where Polish editorial activity was just temporary, but also the areas where it was long-lasting. The book output was a great assistance to Polish people living in diasporas, as well as to readers living in Poland. The following text is an excerpt of the book which is currently being prepared by the author. The book is devoted to the history of Polish publishing in exile.


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