BOOK REVIEW: Peter Bernholz, ‟Totalitarianism, Terrorism and Supreme Values. History and Theory Cham”, Springer, 2017, 160 pp.

Abstract

The book written by Peter Bernholz represents the culmination of a process, serving to refine his theory on the lexicographic preference for supreme values and its fundamental role in the ideologies of totalitarian regimes. As the author mentions in the preface, he developed his theory on ideocracies characterised by supreme values, and of totalitarianism and terrorism, over a number of works since 1988, when he first presented it. While basing his own ideas on the classic works on totalitarianism, such as those of Hannah Arendt, Carl J. Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski, Bernholz seeks to go beyond what he describes as the static nature of totalitarianism theory, doing so in a manner somewhat similar to the important work on ideocracy authored by Piekalkiwicz and Penn.