Recognized on publication as the definitive account of its subject, The Origins of Totalitarianism remains the foundation for continuing discussion.

In this first volume of her monumental study Dr. Arendt traces the rise of antisemitism in Central and Western European Jewish history in the nineteenth century, delineating the part Jews played in the development of the nation-state on one hand and in Gentile society on the other. With the appearance of the first antisemitic parties in the 1870's and Dr. Arendt States, the way was opened that ended in the "final solution." And she views the Dreyfus affair as "a kind of dress rehearsal for the performance of our time"— the first characteristically modern use of antisemitism as an instrument of public policy and of hysteria as a political weapon.