Suggested Readings: Totalitarianism

Islam and Human Ideology
By Samih atef El-Zein, Elsayed M. H. Omran (Translator)
ISBN: 1555877826

"The fundamentalistic Islamic outlook [El-Zein] espouses . . . derives in its near-entirety from the corpora of Marxism-Leninism and fascism. . . . [Unfortunately, the author] is part of a wave of thinkers who cumulatively have enormous influence on politics in the Muslim world. . . . In other words, the hypothetical nature and shoddy quality of El-Zein’s thinking does not diminish its potential importance. As the twentieth century has already many times witnessed, stupid minds can do extraordinary damage." —Middle East Quarterly

The Faces of Janus
By A. James Gregor
ISBN: 0300078277

"This book makes a very important point, namely, that historians and political scientists of the twentieth century have persistently misunderstood the fundamental similarities between ‘Fascism’ and ‘Communism.'"—Richard Pipes

Darkness at Noon
By Arthur Koestler
ISBN: 0553265954

“This splendid novel is set in the tumultuous Soviet Union of the 1930s during the treason trials. Rubashov, the protagonist and a hero of the revolution, is arrested and jailed for things he has not done, though there is much about the current Soviet state that veered from his ideals as a revolutionary. His investigators, Ivanov and Gletkin, seek a public confession and interrogate him using a number of methods. Through the ordeal, Rubashov reaches an epiphany or two while his interrogators suffer the cruel fate of the Soviet machine. Darkness at Noon succeeds as political/historical novel, but even more so as a refreshing tale of the human spirit.”—Amazon.com book description

Stasi
By John O. Koehler
ISBN: 081337445

“There has never been a secret police more fanatically intent on finding out what was going on than the Stasi, East Germany’s secret police force. Its an irony of Koehler’s authoritative book that ultimately the Stasi were unable to prevent or even predict the fall of East Germany. . . . [T]he final irony may be that the East Germans ruined themselves in their efforts to gain more security. Sometimes a little breathless, but a detailed and comprehensive insight into one of the most chilling and the most thorough secret police forces in history.” —Kirkus Reviews