Telos 135: Germany after the Totalitarianisms, Part I is available for purchase in our store.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, a widespread rethinking of political history and social theory commenced. Questions long frozen in the glacial stand-off between East and West began to thaw out, and the ideological mythologies of the twentieth century were subjected to new scrutiny. Why had the century of modernity been so centrally catastrophic? What was the nature of the worst offenders, the totalitarian regimes—especially in Germany, Italy, and Russia—that had generated so much violence? How could intellectuals and public opinion alike have facilely regarded Nazi Germany and fascist Italy as nearly identical formations (when they displayed so many differences)? And how could Stalinist Russia have been hailed as a positive alternative to Nazi Germany (when they displayed so many similarities)? With the disappearance of the Soviet Union, these interrogations could be pursued without the agenda, baggage, and defensiveness of the previous historical era. The question of the totalitarian state could finally be posed with the advantage of historical distance..

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