Paul Hollander, 1932–2019

Paul Hollander was one of the many Central Europeans who enriched American intellectual life in the age of ideology, drawing wisdom out of the tragedies of the twentieth century. He brought a singular focus to his work and writing: with clarity of purpose, indefatigable energy, and a refined and attentive eye, he chronicled the indulgence of far too many Western intellectuals toward the worst regimes in the last century. He was the historian, the sociologist, and above all the impassioned yet measured scourge of the totalitarian temptation in modern times.

Born in Hungary in 1932, his family narrowly avoided being consumed by the terrible Jewish persecutions unleashed by the Hungarian Arrow Cross Party and their Nazi protectors in 1944. As he told John Miller in an interview for National Review in 2009, the Communist authorities later classified his...