In 1951, six years after the end of World War II, the political philosopher Hannah Arendt published The Origins of Totalitarianism, in an attempt to understand how such radical ideologies of both left and right had seized the minds of so many in the 20th century. Arendt’s book used to be a staple in college history and political theory courses. With the end of the Cold War 30 years behind us, who today talks about totalitarianism? Almost no one—and if they do, it’s about Nazism, not communism.
Unsurprisingly, young Americans suffer from profound ignorance of...
