Abstract: This article focuses on The Origins of Totalitarianism, which constitutes a complex and disconcerting work of a composite nature. It appears that the notion of totalitarianism advanced by Arendt is less a function of politicological analysis than of a phenomenology of power and history, in which the emotions transmitted to the reader by the author play a significant role. Thus, we are able to understand why the numerous simultaneous criticisms directed towards this work by Arendt are admissible and do not undermine its value, which is derived partly from the attempt to construct an “emotional understanding of domination”.
