TY - JOUR A1 - Ray, Dean T1 - Escaping the Origins of Totalitarianism: A Critical Appraisal of the Career and Theory of Hannah Arendt and Erich Fromm, Essay, Graduate Major Research Project in Globalization Studies, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada 2015, 43 pp., English. N2 - [First section] The careers of Erich Fromm and Hannah were similar, they wrote about many of the same subjects, they both were marginal in certain ways and had an ability to court controversy. Both theorized about Nazism and wrote popular books that addressed the crimes against humanity committed by Hitler’s regime. And in the age of the popular, they both helped to construct a market for sophisticated social theory among mass publics that had not existed before. For Fromm this was in best-selling Escape from Freedom (1941) and for Arendt, her classic >The Origins of Totalitarianism< (1951). Each work was a success and inspired discussion, debate and sustained critical appraisal. Both were part of a formidable intellectual heritage. Fromm’s roots were impressed by Weber, Marx and Freud – Arendt by Heidegger and Jaspers. They shared a history of pain and suffering, as Jews who escaped Hitler and lost many in Europe’s great catastrophe. Yet unlike their contemporaries – Marcuse, Horkheimer and Adorno – their thought emphasized the redemptive side of humanity, despite addressing head-on human evil. However, despite their similarity, Hannah Arendt is remembered while Erich Fromm is largely forgotten, at least among academics and elite intellectuals in North America. Y1 - 2015 ER -