The Philosopher of War and Terror and Politics: Hannah Arendt

Hannah Arendt 1906-1975

Today a friend asked and I were talking about politics and how refugee problems have led to wars in the past. Then we talked about how much current trouble stems from the way countries handle refugees at their borders. 

Which led me to recommend the books of Hannah Arendt. I am an obsessive reader. Arendt is one of about a dozen authors of whom I read most or all of their work.  So I thought I would make an annotated list of Arendt’s works. 

Hannah Arendt is a philosopher. She studied under Martin Heidegger, completing a PhD in 1928 at age 22 at the University of Heidelberg.  She escaped Germany in 1933 moving to France then to America where she became a citizen and is identified as an American Philosopher. 

I comment briefly on the books I have read. I also include at the end the books I have not yet read.

Eichmann in Jerusalem: Arendt’s most well-known book and most controversial is not philosophy, but reporting for the New Yorker magazine about the trial of Adolph Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1961.  In this book Arendt uses the phrase “the banality of evil” to describe Eichmann. Because Eichmann was responsible for deporting three million Jews to Death Camps, many wanted to see him as evil incarnate. But he was a failed salesman with a talent for logistics, a failure twisted into evil, not an evil mastermind.

Origins of Totalitarianism is a long and brilliant work on how modernity and the crisis of refugees and stateless people led to both world wars and to the creation of totalitarian states in Russia, Germany and later in China.  The book also clearly defines totalitarianism as a new form of government based on isolation and terror that did not exist before the 20^th Century.

The Human Condition: This brilliant book is not about Human Nature, but the circumstances of our collective life.  The book begins with the launching of Sputnik and the effect that event has had on all of humanity. 

On Revolution: The book I am reading now about the relatively modern phenomenon of revolution. She describes how the American Revolution succeeded and why nearly every other revolution has failed. 

Love and Saint Augustine: This book was her PhD thesis. I have never read anyone who better understands Christianity and what happened to the faith when it went from the margins to the center of political power.

Between Past and Future is a book of essays. All the essays are good, but the essays on education and tradition are stunning in their insight and how much they speak to problems right now.

The Promise of Politics follows up on the Origins of Totalitarianism with more analysis of Marxism and how the world of Ancient Greece, particularly Athens, still sets our expectations in the world of politics.

I have not read her collection Jewish Writings or Men in Dark Times because they essays are about the lives of people who I am unfamiliar with and Arendt takes for granted that the reader will know the work and significance of the subjects. I also have not read The Life of the Mind nor have I read On Violence. That will be next. If Democracy fails in America as it has in every other nation on earth. I want to have Arendt’s advice on violence fresh in my mind. 

If I could only read one book by Arendt, it would be The Human Condition. I wrote something on EVERY page of my copy. Next would be the Origins of Totalitarianism. Then Love and Saint Augustine.

I started reading Hannah Arendt shortly after I returned from Iraq.  I did not know it at the time, but in November 2016 I would become a political activist. Hannah Arendt describes clearly the best of politics and the worst. Because of Arendt, I am keenly aware of what political activism really means.  

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