Modernism and totalitarianism : rethinking the intellectual sources of Nazism and Stalinism, 1945 to the present / Richard Shorten.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 287-311) and index.

Part One. Totalitarianism : What, When, How? -- 1. The Problem of the Modern -- Unpacking totalitarian modernism -- Two models of totalitarianism : genocide versus control -- The conceptual limits of political religion theory -- 2. The Problem of Intellectual Antecedents -- Antecedents as affinities -- Antecedents as influences -- Part Two. Three Totalitarian Currents -- 3. Utopianism -- The view from Cold War liberalism -- Communist utopianism -- Nazism and utopianism -- 4. Scientism -- Critical theory and the pathologies of reason -- Nazi science? -- Marxism, Stalinism and scientism -- 5. Revolutionary Violence -- The revolutionary passion in French anti-totalitarian thought -- The leftist orientation -- The rightist orientation.