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[[Totalitarianism]], as an [[ideological ]] [[notion]], has always had a precise strategic function: to [[guarantee ]] the [[liberal]]-democratic [[hegemony ]] by dismissing the [[Leftist ]] critique of liberal [[democracy ]] as the obverse, the twin, of the Rightist Fascist dictatorships.

Instead of providing yet [[another ]] systematic exposition of the [[history ]] of this notion, [[Zizek ]] ’s new book addresses totalitarianism in a Wittgensteinian way, as a cobweb of [[family ]] resemblances. In so doing it reveals the prevalence of the consensus-view of totalitarianism, in which it is invariably defined by one of the following four things: the [[holocaust ]] as the ultimate, diabolical [[evil]]; the Stalinist [[gulag ]] as the alleged [[truth ]] of the Socialist revolutionary [[project]]; the [[recent ]] wave of ethnic and [[religious ]] fundamentalisms to be fought through multiculturalist [[tolerance]]; or the deconstructionist [[idea ]] that the ultimate root of totalitarianism is the [[ontological ]] closure of [[thought]], the [[denial ]] of the irreducible gap in [[human ]] [[existence]].

|width="100%"| [[Slavoj Žižek|Zizek, Slavoj]]. '''''[[Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism|Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism? Five Essays in the (Mis)Use of a Notion|Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism: Five Interventions in the (Mis)Use of a Notion]]'''''. New York: Verso. October 27, 2002, Paperback, 288 pages, [[Language]]: [[English]], ISBN: 1859844251. <small>Buy it at [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1859844251/nosubject-20/ Amazon.com], [http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/1859844251/nosub07-20/ Amazon.ca], [http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/1859844251/nosub-21/ Amazon.de], [http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1859844251/nosubjencyofl-21/ Amazon.co.uk] or [http://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/ASIN/1859844251/nosub04-21/ Amazon.fr].</small>