Inhuman or overman: Arendt and Badiou on the short century

Alain Badiou's perception of the twentieth century's "passion for the real" toward radical revolutionary change, contrasts markedly with Hannah Arendt's own perspectives of this period, with the imposition of ideologies as systems of thought which resulted in pernicious processes of mass dehumanisation. Through a reading of Badiou's The Century (2008), and Arendt's political thinking of the twentieth century, this chapter not only explores the differences in their political theories, but also assesses the legacy that century bequeathed to the twenty-first century.