Hannah Arendt - Selected Works (14 books)

HANNAH ARENDT (1906-1975) was one of the most influential political philosophers of the twentieth century. Born into a German-Jewish family, she was forced to leave Germany in 1933 and lived in Paris for the next eight years, working for a number of Jewish refugee organisations. In 1941 she immigrated to the United States and soon became part of a lively intellectual circle in New York. She held a number of academic positions at various American universities until her death in 1975.

She is best known for two works that had a major impact both within and outside the academic community. The first, THE ORIGINS OF TOTALITARIANISM, published in 1951, was a study of the Nazi and Stalinist regimes that generated a wide-ranging debate on the nature and historical antecedents of the totalitarian phenomenon. The second, THE HUMAN CONDITION, published in 1958, was an original philosophical study that investigated the fundamental categories of the vita activa (labor, work, action). In addition to these two important works, Arendt published a number of influential books and essays on topics such as the nature of revolution, freedom, authority, tradition and the modern age.

In 1961 she attended the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem as a reporter for The New Yorker magazine, and two years later published EICHMANN IN JERUSALEM, which coined the phrase "the banality of evil" to describe the Nazi leader. The book caused a deep controversy in Jewish circles for its sharp criticism of the way the trial was conducted as well as Arendt's critical perspective on the actions of some Jewish leaders during the Holocaust.

The same year saw the publication of ON REVOLUTION, a comparative analysis of the American and French revolutions. A number of important essays were also published during the 60's and early 70's, including MEN IN DARK TIMES, a series of intellectual biographies of some creative and moral figures of the twentieth century, such as Walter Benjamin, Karl Jaspers, Rosa Luxemburg, Hermann Broch, Pope John XXIII, and Isak Dinesen).

At the time of her death in 1975, she had completed the first two volumes on her last major philosophical work, THE LIFE OF THE MIND, which examined the three fundamental faculties of the vita contemplativa (thinking, willing, judging), and was published posthumously in 1978. The third volume was left unfinished, but some background material and lecture notes were published in 1982 under the title LECTURES ON KANT'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.

All her major works are collected here. With the exception of EICHMANN IN JERUSALEM (ePub), the following books are in PDF format:

* BETWEEN PAST AND FUTURE: Six Exercises in Political Thought (Viking, 1961). Introduction by Jerome Kohn.

* CRISES OF THE REPUBLIC: Lying in Politics; Civil Disobedience; On Violence; and Thoughts on Politics and Revolution (Harcourt Brace & Co., 1972).

* EICHMANN IN JERUSALEM: A Report on the Banality of Evil (Penguin, 2006). Introduction by Amos Elon. [EPUB]

* ESSAY IN UNDERSTANDING, 1930-1954: Formation, Exile, and Totalitarianism (Schocken Books, 2005). Edited with an Introduction by Jerome Kohn.

* THE HUMAN CONDITION, 2nd edn. (University of Chicago Press, 1998). Introduction by Margaret Canovan.

* THE JEWISH WRITINGS (Schocken Books, 2007). Edited by Jerome Kohn and Ron H. Feldman.

* LECTURES ON KANT'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY (University of Chicago Press, 1982). Edited with an Interpretive Essay by Ronald Beiner.

* THE LIFE OF THE MIND, One volume edition (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981). Edited by Mary McCarthy.

* MEN IN DARK TIMES (Harcourt, Brace & World, 1970).

* ON REVOLUTION (Penguin, 1990).

* ON VIOLENCE (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1969).

* THE ORIGINS OF TOTALITARIANISM, New Edition with Added Prefaces (Harcourt Brace & Co., 1979).

* THE PORTABLE HANNAH ARENDT (Penguin, 2000). Edited with an Introduction by Peter Baehr.

* RESPONSIBILITY AND JUDGMENT (Schocken Books, 2003). Edited with an Introduction by Jerome Kohn.