Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN: | 058534485X 9780585344850 9780300146660 0300146663 0300071809
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Notes: | "This book grew out of my dissertation work with Karsten Harries at Yale University"--Acknowledgments. Includes bibliographical references (pages 211-277) and index. English. Print version record.
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Summary: | "Halberstam argues that neither liberalism nor totalitarianism can be understood without the other. Liberalism reflects the modern conception of politics: a vision of society as a human construct answering to an unprecedented valorization of freedom. The liberal attempt to emancipate politics from culture, however, risks a loss of shared meaning that totalitarianism promises to repair. The author thus reveals how the idea of totalitarianism embodies truths and contradictions about liberalism itself. The philosophical heart of the book is a critical development of Immanuel Kant's theory of reflective, aesthetic judgment, exposing the limits of reason and taking up what Hannah Arendt's unfinished work suggests. This rich study in the history of modern political thought from Hobbes through Marx to the present culminates with a new and surprising interpretation of Arendt's theory of totalitarianism."--Jacket.
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Other form: | Print version: Halberstam, Michael, 1963- Totalitarianism and the modern conception of politics. New Haven, Conn. : Yale University Press, ©1999 0300071809
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