How can such a book speak so powerfully to our present moment? The short answer is that we too live in dark times. Hannah Arendt's chilling analysis of the conditions that led to the totalitarian regimes of the Nazis and Soviets serves as a warning from history about the fragility of freedom. She examines how propaganda, scapegoating, terror, and political isolation all contributed to the slide into total domination. A nonfiction book that serves as a counterpart to Nineteen Eighty-Four. The political theorist who wrote about the Nazis and the 'banality of evil' has become an unexpected bestseller.