Simon Tormey

This book presents and discusses five models of "totalitarianism" in 20th century political theory. The concept does not have the same meaning in each model. By analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of these five approaches in light of the history of dictatorhip, the author tries to stake out the middle ground and delineate requirements for parsimonious descriptions of "totalitarian" systems. In other words, he does not develop his own description of totalitarianism, he merely discusses those of others.

As far as the utility of the five models is concerned, I would rank Hannah Arendt first, Friedrich and Brzezinksi second and Vaclav Havel third. All three are very interesting. Friedrich Hayek comes in a distant fourth because his intention (in Road to Serfdom) was not to describe totalitarian systems. The fifth author is Herbert Marcuse, but I would place him 105th because there must be hundreds of authors who have analyzed dictatorships from a better vantage point than his. Marcuse should not have been included in this work just because he happens to misuse the word "totalitarianism" in his bizarre description of American society.

The author provides a good presentation of each theorist's work and weighs their strengths and weaknesses fairly. This book was written in 1995 and is now becoming a bit outdated. For example, the author of this book was clearly unaware of present-day totalitarian rule in North Korea.… (meer)