Description
Hannah Arendt once wrote to Karl Jaspers that she wonders whether it is more difficult to instill awareness of politics in the Germans or to explain philosophy to Americans – and with only a slight exaggeration one could say that Hannah Arendt wrote her groundbreaking book “The Origins of Totalitarianism” twice: once in English (first published in 1951) and once in German (published in 1955). This paper will interrogate the differences between the two versions of the book in regard to the following questions: How did Arendt’s experience as a refugee and as an émigré scholar shape the way she developed her theory? And what do the differences in her books tell us about the addressed audiences of the two versions? Or are the differences better explained if we look at the way the Cold War developed in between the years that the two versions got published? By analyzing the internationality of this book, particularly the section on totalitarianism, I hope to show how Arendt was crafting her books and to offer insights for scholars engaged in the intercultural translation of political ideas.
