Hope and Memory

"The structural nature of evil, the human propensity for it, and it's
relationship to ideas of the good, is Tzvetan Todorov's subject in this
meditation on totalitarianism and democracy in the 20th century. . . . Totalitarianism, he argues, was the great innovation of the 20th century because it played so successfully to people's need for the absolute. . . . Todorov explores this in comparing the Soviet and Nazi systems and in examining the intellectual and legal conflicts between communists and their critics in postwar France and the continuing argument between right and left over which kind of excesses are most culpable."---Martin Woollacott, Guardian Saturday Review

Autorentext
Tzvetan Todorov Translated by David Bellos

Klappentext
Both a political history and a moral critique of the twentieth century, this is a personal and impassioned book from one of Europe's most outstanding intellectuals. Identifying totalitarianism as the major innovation of the twentieth century, Tzvetan Todorov examines the struggle between this system and democracy and its effects on human life and consciousness. Totalitarianism managed to impose itself because, more than any other political system, it played on people's need for the absolute: it fed their hope to endow life with meaning by taking part in the construction of a paradise on earth. As a result, millions of people lost their lives in the name of a higher good. While democracy eventually won the struggle against totalitarianism in much of the world, democracy itself is not immune to the pitfall of do-goodery: moral correctness at home and atomic or "humanitarian" bombs abroad. Todorov explores the history of the past century not only by analyzing its spectacular political conflicts but also by offering moving profiles of several individuals who, at great personal cost, resisted the strictures of the communist and Nazi regimes. Some--Margarete Buber-Neumann, David Rousset, Primo Levi, and Germaine Tillion--were deported to concentration camps. Others--Vasily Grossman and Romain Gary--fought courageously in World War II. All became exemplary witnesses who described with great lucidity and humanity what they had endured. This book preserves the memory of the past as we move into the twenty-first century--arguing eloquently that we must place the past at the service of a just future.

Zusammenfassung
Examines the struggle between Totalitarianism and democracy and its effects on human life and consciousness. This book explores the history of the twentieth century not only by analyzing its spectacular political conflicts but also by offering profiles of several individuals who resisted the strictures of the communist and Nazi regimes.

Inhalt
List of Abbreviations and Acronyms vii
Preface to the English Edition ix
Prologue: the last hundred years 1
Chapter 1: What Went Wrong in the Twentieth Century 5
Our Liberal Democracies 5
The Ideal Type of Totalitarianism 14
Scientism and Humanism 19
The Birth of Totalitarian Doctrine 26
War As the Truth of Life 32
The Two-Edged Knife 40
The Achievement of Vasily Grossman 48
Chapter 2: Two of a Kind 74
Peas in a Pod 74
Apples and Oranges 82
The Reckoning 91
The Achievement of Margarete Buber-Neumann 93
Chapter 3: Preserving the Past 113
The Control of Memory 113
The Three Stages 119
Testimony, History, and Commemoration 129
Moral Judgment 134
Master Narratives 142
The Achievement of David Rousset 148
Chapter 4: The Uses of Memory 159
The Frying Pan and the Fire 159
Serving Purposes 164
What Memory Is For 168
The Achievement of Primo Levi 177
Chapter 5: The Past in the Present 187
"Moral Correctness" 187
History and Myth 197
History and the Law 205
The Achievement of Romain Gary 213
Chapter 6: The Perils of Democracy 228
The Hiroshima and Nagasaki Bombs 228
Kosovo: The Political Context 237
Military Intervention 251
Humanitarian Action and the Law 265
The Right to Interfere versus the Obligation to Aid 274
The Achievement of Germaine Tillion 291
epilogue: the next hundred years 311
Bibliography 319
Index 327

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