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Intellectual portaits that augment human dignity
These portraits of Karl Jaspers, Waldemar Gurian, Randall Jarrell, Walter Benjamin,Isak Dinesen,Bertolhdt Brecht, Pope John XXIII are remarkable for their human insight, their narrative power and their philosophical understanding. Arendt makes of each portrait a life- story, often a most moving story, and a presentation and critical assessment of the figure 's life- work. In some cases she had a central part in introducing to an English reading audience seminal figures ( Walter Benjamin and Hermann Broch are the outstanding examples) who were far less well known , than they would come to be. She chooses figures whose power of creation is great and unique, and she assesses them in terms of her own set of categories and understandings. One outstanding instance is her evaulation it is really a laudatio a work of praise for the great Pope John XXIII .She speaks of his remarkable simplicity, humanity and courage. His simple great faith "Every day is a good day to be born, and every day is a good day to die"
Some of the portraits are of personal acquaintances and friends. And one feels that in writing about them she is somehow doing for them what she in her " The Human Condition" spoke about as the role of the poet the immortalization of the hero and their deeds. She has a wonderful eye, and her description for instance of the awkwardness with material things of Waldemar Gurian catches the essence of the person in a striking way.
All in all the portraits of Men in Dark Times shed light on the human character and soul, and are a testimony not only to the greatness of the subjects but to the greatness of the writer herself.

Hannah Arendt's Political Biographies
Men in Dark Times is a collection of biographical essays Arendt wrote over a period of 15 years (1955-1968), all of which were published elsewhere, and collected here under this title. She has choosen to collct her portraits of cultural and political figures who worked and were caught upin world affairs in the first half of the twentieth-century, figures suchas Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Jaspers, Isak Dinesen, Walter Benjamin, and BertoltBrecht. The oppening essay, "On Humanity in Dark Times: Thoughts aboutLessing," focuses on the thought of the eighteenth-century Germanphilosopher, and she uses his thoughts on friendship, on the political andcivic aspects of friendship, the ways in which philosophical and politicalworks are formed through civic friendship, to tie all of the personaediscussed in the book together. She sees them all as struggling to producein an era racked by political upheavel. As always, she writes with a highlyastute critical eye and a sharp tongue. It is one of her more polemicalworks, and is sure to make one re-evaulate how we look not only at thelives and works of those she tells us about, but also about ourselves. ... Read more

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Nice considerations of when these people should sound off
I have found CORRESPONDENCE 1926 - 1969 of Hannah Arendt and Karl Jaspers to be enormously entertaining, easy to read, and surprisingly foreboding about problems in the book trade caused by foreign indebtedness.Politically, each date brings chilling summaries.For Hannah Arendt in America, on June 3, 1949, "At the moment, the general political atmosphere is dismal here, particularly at the universities and colleges (with the exception of the very eminent ones)."(pp. 136-137).This letter 90 has several notes on pages 714-715 which give details that are sure to be humorous now for anyone who has ever heard of Aspen, where the leaves all turn at the same time because the roots are interconnected, as perjury suspect Libby Scooter informed New York Times reporter Judy Miller in a letter urging her to end her days in prison and testify in 2005 so an investigation of White House activities relating to the identity of CIA WMD analyst Plame could be resolved quickly.According to this book, Hutchins, the president of Chicago University, was the nominal organizer of a two-week conference and Goethe celebration in July 1949 in Aspen, Colorado, attended by José Ortega y Gasset, Albert Schweitzer, Ernst Simon, Stephen Spender, and Thornton Wilder.Letter 90 was a response to articles that had been written by the "Bonn Romanticist Ernst Robert Curtius, 1886-1956," (p. 714) who would also be at the conference:

"The real power behind it is a German-American, a real-estate dealer, who recently bought up a ghost town and then had the commercially brilliant idea of tying Goethe into his business.His sole motive is to exploit Goethe to make this town world famous, so he can then make a bundle of money from tourists.The whole thing is really quite marvelous.The second backer, however, is a less amusing figure:Do you remember Bergstrasser from Heidelberg?After he had successfully accommodated himself to the regime, it was shown that he had a whole string of Jewish ancestors.He is the real moving force behind this program."(p. 136).

Curtius had published a polemic in Germany on April 2, 1949 which accused Jaspers of making "our collective guilt so plain to us that we can continue to live only with a guilty conscience.A Wilhelm von Humboldt of our time, he laid out guidelines for German universities, until he turned his back on them. ... He is crowning these national pedagogical efforts with a `campaign in Switzerland' that is directed against Goethe.Habemus Papam!"(pp. 714-715).In response to the comments of some Heidelberg professors, Curtius replied on May 17, 1949, and finally on July 2, 1949, with a title, "Goethe, Jaspers, Curtius."(p. 715).`Die Zeit' might be to blame for that title, which reeks of arrogance.

In any event, books in those days were considered significant enough that the move by Jaspers to Switzerland, as advised by Hannah Arendt on June 30, 1947, (when Jaspers was giving guest lectures in Basel), "we would do best not to settle down too permanently anywhere, not really to depend on any nation, for it can change overnight into a mob and a blind instrument of ruin" (p. 91), which made publication of books by Jaspers much easier, was resented by Germans who had already spent the money those books would earn.America was a great place for books by Jaspers to make money, and Hannah Arendt did her part to make sure that the translators selected by the publishers were able to express what Jaspers was saying in some form of English that readers could understand.Sounding like an American, Jaspers wrote on July 20, 1947:

"We are living in paradise here.My wife is already cutting back at table for fear of putting on weight."(p. 93)

Heartwarming and Intellectually Engaging
Jaspers and Arendt cover everything and everyone: Sartre, Heidegger, Marx, Goethe, Camus; post-WWII Germany, "the infinitely complex red-tape existence of stateless persons," the Cold War, the "senile" Eisenhower administration, Eichmann, totalitarianism, the atom bomb, local democracy--it's all there. So too is a life-long, extremely close friendship between people who weathered a war from different sides of the globe, who faced cold war terror in radically different ways, who loved their spouses intensely but felt somehow separated by differences in world-view tracable to ethnicity(Gertrude was ethnically Jewish and Heinrich was ethnically Christian). Her admiration of him, her intellectual debt to him, her love for him; his seeming amazement at her vivacity, his admiration of her intellect, his cold, German form of love--and the walls cracking, and his sentiment sometimes pouring through.

It's a warm book up until the very last entry, Arendt's address at Jaspers' funeral. That's enough to send a shiver up your spine--but only if you read it in the context of everything else.

More Than a Correspondence - A Dialogue
In 1926 Hannah Arendt was a student of Karl Jaspers at Heidelberg University. What began as the questions of a student to her teacher in 1926 blossomed into a friendly correspondence that ended with Arendt's forced emigration from Nazi Germany to the United States, with a stopover in France in the 30s, and then resumed in the Postwar years completely transformed into a rich, detailed dialogue between colleagues and friends, taking on a father-daughter feeling in many of the letters.

It was during the years after 1945 that the two examined everything about their world and themselves. Of particular importance were the dual issues of German guilt for the war and, for Jaspers, what it meant to be a Jew, for not only was Arendt and her husband Jewish, but also Jaspers's wife. This issue becomes intertwined in their conversations about the future of West Germany, the Suez War of 1956, and Arendt's trip to Jerusalem to cover the trial of Adolf Eichmann. When they shift the political into the personal, Martin Heidegger, a colleague of Jaspers and a teacher of Arendt, is there for taking. The passages concerning Heidegger are quite gossipy at times and lend the reader a voyeuristic look into the private worlds of Arendt and Jaspers. It's almost as if when things get dull and weighty, a little dirt about Heidegger adds just the spice to make the letter memorable.

The other strong point of this book is the portrait Arendt paints of politics in 1950s America, succinctly analyzing the Eisenhower (and later Kennedy) Administrations, describing the collapse of the cities in the 60s, and the "pointless" war in Vietnam. It's almost as if a mirror were held up to history, as insights about those turbelent times pour forth from every letter dispatched.

An invaluable book, not only for those interested in the scholarly events of the times, but for anyone interested in the history of the times. ... Read more

Book Description
Recognition of Hannah Arendt's contribution to the history of western philosophy is long overdue. Arendt was a 'political thinker', but this book highlights the importance of her ontological preoccupations for an understanding of her work. ... Read more

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Book Description
Hannah Arendt's approach to politics focuses on action and conduct, rather than institutions, constitutions, and states. In light of Arendtian conceptions of politics, essays in this book challenge conventional IR theories. The contributions on agency explore concepts and categories of political action that enable individuals to act politically and to re-make the world in new, unpredictable ways. The contributions on structure explore how Arendt provides new critical purchase upon often reified structures and categories. ... Read more

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Martin Heidegger is perhaps the twentieth century's greatest philosopher, and his work stimulated much that is original and compelling in modern thought. A seductive classroom presence, he attracted Germany's brightest young intellects during the 1920s. Many were Jews, who ultimately would have to reconcile their philosophical and, often, personal commitments to Heidegger with his nefarious political views.

In 1933, Heidegger cast his lot with National Socialism. He squelched the careers of Jewish students and denounced fellow professors whom he considered insufficiently radical. For years, he signed letters and opened lectures with ''Heil Hitler!'' He paid dues to the Nazi party until the bitter end. Equally problematic for his former students were his sordid efforts to make existential thought serviceable to Nazi ends and his failure to ever renounce these actions.

This book explores how four of Heidegger's most influential Jewish students came to grips with his Nazi association and how it affected their thinking. Hannah Arendt, who was Heidegger's lover as well as his student, went on to become one of the century's greatest political thinkers. Karl Löwith returned to Germany in 1953 and quickly became one of its leading philosophers. Hans Jonas grew famous as Germany's premier philosopher of environmentalism. Herbert Marcuse gained celebrity as a Frankfurt School intellectual and mentor to the New Left.

Why did these brilliant minds fail to see what was in Heidegger's heart and Germany's future? How would they, after the war, reappraise Germany's intellectual traditions? Could they salvage aspects of Heidegger's thought? Would their philosophy reflect or completely reject their early studies? Could these Heideggerians forgive, or even try to understand, the betrayal of the man they so admired? Heidegger's Children locates these paradoxes in the wider cruel irony that European Jews experienced their greatest calamity immediately following their fullest assimilation. And it finds in their responses answers to questions about the nature of existential disillusionment and the juncture between politics and ideas.

Customer Reviews (10)

MR. WOLIN, PLEASE MAKE UP YOUR MIND!
The author of Heidegger's children can't make up his mind: are "Heidegger's Children" Jewish or not? First he calls them "non-Jewish Jews," but then they are "Jewish," then they are "assimilated Jews," etc. Assimilated Jews aren't Jewish? Mr. Wolin maintains that Hannah Arendt wasn't really Jewish because she supported a two-state solution in Palestine. Mr. Wolin also sensationalizes and exagerates Heidegger's involvement with National Socialism. In my opinion, Wolin's book is not fit to be called scholarship.

Shadenfruede
mr Wolin doesn't like Heidegger. Therefore, he feels compelled to attack Jews who like Heidegger. Derrida. Levinas. Arendt. In my opinion, Mr. Wolin is a reactionary, with a deep aversion to philosophers (Heidegger, Derrida, Levinas, Arendt) of far greater talent and intelligence.

The Second of Wolin's Books I've Read
This book ends by stating "Only an understanding of Heidegger's children that appreciates their relationship to the German catastrophe and the traumas it bred will prove capable of doing justice to their powerful and complex philosophical legacy."This sentence could as easily have begun the book, for it effectively introduces what Wolin set out to do:to present the intellectual and historical roots of Heidegger's "children" (Hannah Arendt, Karl Lowith, Hans Jonas, Herbert Marcuse).

Whether he succeeds in this depends upon how one understands the lineage of intellectual development, and how to account for any thinking that appears new.Wolin is excellent at providing parallel and complementary ideas from the milieu in which each of the "children" lived and worked.He has a gifted eye for similar and potentially influential observations and arguments; whether that means he has explained the finished product represented by each of the title subjects' works, is a distinct question.

I'm glad to have read Wolin--it was time worth spending.There were numerous proofreading errors ('it' instead of 'if', e.g.) that are unsettling in a mode of writing that heavily depends upon precision about often complex distinctions, but the gist of his writing is never in doubt.My understanding of Heidegger's philosophy and specifically of his relationship to national socialism, has definitely been enhanced.

It is Wolin's core use of what I call "contagion theory," that gives me greatest pause about both his analysis in this volume and the overall utility of his work.I found myself mentally summoning a voice from America's Fifties, asking "Have you ever been, or are you now..." in considering just how I should frame and weigh the by-now predictable Wolin approach in addressing thinkers of whom he disapproves.

For disapproval it is, far more than mere disagreement.Give the man his due:he's thoughtful and obviously bright.Whether this means his "contagion" analysis is substantively or even fatally flawed, is for me an open question...as is whether it would be time well spent to read yet another of his volumes.

An acceptable inquiry into Heidegger's legacy
Richard Wolin's "Heidegger's Children" is an overview of Heidegger's pupils, Heidegger's effect on them philosophically and the position of Heidegger's political choices in this relation. Judging by the tone and a general lack of depth, the book is mostly intended for people of intellectual caliber but not very well-versed in the subject, which makes it excellent for academics who know nothing about Heidegger, for example. Of course this will not satisfy any real Heidegger scholar, but contrary to other reviewers, I don't think that's necessarily a problem.

Wolin's rapid overview of the philosophies of Hannah Arendt, Karl Löwith, Hans Jonas and Herbert Marcuse is generally good, and critical where deserved. He never really goes into the issues with their works themselves, but stays on the subject of the connection between their thought and Heidegger, often mainly relying on biographical analysis. Wolin's overall tone in reflecting on Heidegger and his pupils is that of the 'left-liberal' (continentally speaking) wondering what could have gone wrong, which is a bit annoying at times, but should not bother the reader too much.

On the whole, the book succeeds well for its purpose, but is a little superficial. One also would have wished that the two chapters on Heidegger himself had been in the front of the book instead of the back, since now one is basically 'reading backwards' into what Heidegger thought, so to speak. The conclusion is also rather stronger in criticism than the book itself allows. Therefore, I would recommend it mostly for intellectuals who want a basic overview of four of Heidegger's main pupils, but not for those knowledgeable about Heidegger or interested in an in-depth analysis of his work.

Wherefore loyalty?
The controversy over Heidegger is likely to continue into future generations.One of the great intellectuals of the twentieth century, he blotted his copybook (so to speak) by becoming one of the leading intellectuals of the National-Socialist movement in Germany in the 1930s, changing from a professor who attracted the best and brightest of students from all over Europe to one of the more rigid and dogmatic defenders of Nazi ideals, even at the expense of colleagues, students and friends.Even after the destruction of Germany, Heidegger remained unrepentent about his history and views.

This book, while a stand-alone text, represents the conclusion of a multi-volume task to examine Heidegger's work and intellectual legacy.The first two texts, 'The Politics of Being' and 'The Heidegger Controversy', represented an attempt to look both the politics and the philosophy of Heidegger -- the latter book having created a bit of a fire-storm due to the inclusion of an article by Derrida, who objected to the inclusion.

One of the more bizarre twists in the tale of Heidegger, however, was in the continuing intellectual development of his legacy among his Jewish students.Many of the top students in Heidegger's following in the 1920s and early 1930s were Jewish, and they would ultimately have to reconcile their associations and attachments to Heidegger (the person and the philosophical ideas) in response or reaction to his actions.Richard Wolin's text looks specifically at four key figures:Hannah Arendt, Karl Lowith, Hans Jonas and Herbert Marcuse.

All of these four thinkers, acclaimed in their own rights, considered themselves more assimilated Germans than Jews; however, this was not the thinking of the powers-that-were in the 1930s/40s Germany.Each would have to, in the course of careers including academia and writing, have to reconcile to the past idolisation of Heidegger.Germany was, after all, the centre of culture, a nation of writers and thinkers, all to go horribly mad.Wolin's introductory chapter sets a context -- the real problem for Heidegger's students was to determine whether or not there was something integral, something necessary in the connection between the political totalitarian and vicious National-Socialism and Heidegger's existentialist ideas.Wolin gives a brief overview of the development of philosophy to existentialism.In the second chapter, Wolin gives a brief history of German-Jewish relationships, and looks to the points of divergence that culminated in holocaust.

Wolin devotes a chapter to each of the key 'children'.Hannah Arendt was not only Heidegger's student, but also carried on an affair with him, making Heidegger's betrayal personal as well as political.Arendt's problem was not just a 'Heidegger problem', but also a 'Jewish problem', in the sense of her writing allowing that the line between victim and villain was not as distinct as might be believed.Karl Lowith is less well known outside the German speaking world, but his work in philosophy has made him a significant figure, particularly in examining the history of philosophical development -- this development is very much in line with much of Heidegger's methodology, despite the obvious problem that such development leads to a Heidegger.Hans Jonas did confront Heidegger's past openly and publically, in lecture format no less, causing a shift from theological Heideggerian developments such that the trend fell quickly from vogue.Herbert Marcuse is perhaps the most interesting development among Heidegger's children, having been more of an interested pupil rather than proto-disciple; Marcuse combined Heideggerian influences into a general Marxist framework.

In the final chapters, Wolin looks at the overall synthesis and development of these ideas, the post-war German and European intellectual experience, and the problems and strengths that continue from Heidegger's primary work, 'Being and Time".In the conclusion, Wolin states that while it is hard to find better histories of philosophy than those produced by Heidegger and his students, they make the mistakes of confusing philosophy and history, and this can also explain part of Heidegger's general political trouble.

There are a few issues -- Wolin is occasionally choppy, and sometimes repetitious needlessly.Also, Wolin's lack of inclusion of a few key figures (Strauss comes to mind here) leaves something to be desired.However, the construction with the four figures here is well-done and thorough.This is a fascinating text, highlighting a lesser-known but strangely pervasive strand in intellectual history, and helps to highlight difficulties and opportunities in the continuing development out of the work of Heidegger. ... Read more

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Philosophia brings together, for the first time, the work of three major women thinkers of this century, producing a developing commentary on the human condition as an alternative to the mainstream, masculine, philosophical tradition. ... Read more

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This study of Hannah Arendt, one of the most original thinkers of the twentieth century, presents an unusual reconstruction of her political philosophy. It is the first book to systematically evaluate the four major concepts underlying her work--modernity, action, judgement, and citizenship. Addressing each concept in turn, Maurizio Passerin d'Entreves also examines the integrity of Arendt's argument, providing a philosophical account of her theory of participatory democracy based on freedom, plurality, and solidarity. D'Entreves draws out the tensions and ambiguities in Arendt's work, arguing that her conception of active citizenship and communication provides the best starting point for the proper exercise of political agency. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A very solid and interesting look at Arendt's philosophy.
(First of all, there is a paperback printing of this, as I have it.)
This is a very readable, very well organized overview and assessment of Hannah Arendt's political philosophy.The book is broken into 5 major sections: 1) Introduction 2)Arendt's conception of modernity 3)Arendt's theory of Action 4) Arendt's theory of judgement & 5) Arendt's conception of citizenship.
Now, anyone familiar with Arendt's work is probably already well aquainted with these themes, yet this book manages to bring more life to these major concepts and takes some of the most illuminating quotes from Arendt's works, so that the reader needn't take the author's word on what Arendt meant.
This book is not merely an introduction to Arendt (though it is fine as that, too) it is a sharp critique of her ideas, but is aware that even when her words seem inadequate, the spirit of Arendt's political philosophy is still strong; and d'Entreves does quite well emphasizing this intangible aspect of Arendt's philosophy.He addresses the criticisms and responses of many philosophers and critics and draws Arendt into a dialogue with these writers, helping to continue the project of Arendtian philosophy. ... Read more

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Margaret Canovan argues in this book that much of the published work on Arendt has been flawed by serious misunderstandings, arising from a failure to see her work in its proper context. The author shows how such misunderstanding was possible, and offers a fundamental reinterpretation, drawing on Arendt's unpublished as well as her published work, which sheds new light on most areas of her thought. ... Read more

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For many years Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) has been the object of intense debate. After her bitter critiques of Zionism, which seemed to nullify her early involvement with that movement, and her extremely controversial Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), Arendt became virtually a taboo figure in Israeli and Jewish circles. Challenging the "curse" of her own title, Hannah Arendt in Jerusalem carries the scholarly investigation of this much-discussed writer to the very place where her ideas have been most conspicuously ignored. Sometimes sympathetically, sometimes critically, these distinguished contributors reexamine crucial aspects of Arendt's life and thought: her complex identity as a German Jew; her commitment to and critique of Zionism and the state of Israel; her works on "totalitarianism," Nazism, and the Eichmann trial; her relationship to key twentieth-century intellectuals; her intimate and tense connections to German culture; and her reworkings of political thought and philosophy in the light of the experience of the twentieth century. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

The Legacy of Arendt's EICHMANN IN JERUSALEM
There are many themes raised in this book, and I will mention only a few of them. Richard I. Cohen (p. 253) states that no single study of the Holocaust has attracted the same attention as Arendt's work on the Eichmann trial.

Walter Laqueur (p. 50) speaks of Jaspar's work as insisting on German guilt (p. 50). But shouldn't it be characterized as collective German liability rather than collective German guilt? (See the Peczkis review at The Question of German Guilt (Perspectives in Continental Philosophy, No. 16)).

Michael Halberstam compares totalitarian systems: "Historians agree that the average ethnic German was not terrorized by the constant threat of deportation and death, as was even the most powerful Russian party member during Stalin's rule in the mid 1930's. Such doubts about the actual levels of threat experienced by the ethnic German population under National Socialism raise suspicions that the terror thesis--and with it, the comparative concept of totalitarianism--constitutes an apologetic for crimes committed under the Nazi regime. The terror thesis, it is argued, falsely presents the German population as passive sufferers, rather than willing participants in the murderous political cult of German nationalist supremacy." (p. 106)

What about the French? Yaacov Lozowick writes: "Their central thesis, now accepted by all mainstream historians, is that the Vichy government acted against its Jews of its own volition." (p. 388)

Without doubt, the most volatile content of Arendt's classic was her candid discussion of Jew-against-Jew collaboration during the Holocaust. Lilian Weissberg comments: "EICHMANN IN JERUSALEM was criticized by many Jewish organizations as an indictment of Jews because Arendt did not understand them as innocent victims only." (p. 154). Susan Neiman (p. 65) notes that some saw this as a confusion of who was on trial: Eichmann or the Judenrate. The editor, Steven E. Aschheim, takes this further: "Indeed, in her treatment of the Judenrate, her apparent blurring of the almost sacrosanct distinction between perpetrators and victims seemed to violate fundamental sensibilities...Moreover, very early on, Arendt warned that the uniqueness of the atrocities could create a self-righteous cult of victimization, one that indeed has occurred. (Witness the absurd current competition in comparative victimization as a tool of identity politics.) (p. 14)

Finally, Hans Mommsen puts Arendt's work in a broader context. Arendt recognized the fact that the Nazi extermination of the Jews was also expanding into the extermination of Sinti and Roma (Gypsies) and Slavs (p. 230)

Very satisfying on an emotional level
HANNAH ARENDT IN JERUSALEM has 21 chapters, plus a preface and introduction, which provide papers from a conference held in Jerusalem between December 9 and December 11, 1997, 22 years after her death.Notes on the papers on pages 347-420 contain information which has not been included in the index on pages 425-428.Scholars have multiple points of view on how well she managed to tune in to the issues which made the twentieth century so exciting.I appreciate Arendt for her ability to derive lessons from Nietzsche that exceed my own powers of observation, but the middle of this book has 180 pages between mentions of Nietzsche, though these pages contain a chapter on The Intellectual Background by Hans Mommsen (an expert on German history and literature) called "Hannah Arendt's Interpretation of the Holocaust as a Challenge to Human Existence" (pp. 224-231).She was prone to emphasize what she had already written in THE ORIGINS OF TOTALITARIANISM when she went to Jerusalem for the Eichmann trial, a politically inept location for observing that "the Nazi machinery of destruction successfully turned the criminal activities involved into routine procedures that suffocated any moral protest, either from bystanders or from those who were induced to become perpetrators," (p. 231).Hans Mommsen was afraid that this context "inevitably created the erroneous impression that she intended to express contempt for the court itself."(p. 230).

Other contributors to this book who spent countless hours reading the books of letter to and from Hannah Arendt have no difficulty documenting that, as Walter Laqueur admitted, "The animosity toward Jews as a group was of long standing, and it was by no means restricted to Israel and the Israelis. . . .Perhaps she had read too much anti-Semitic literature for her own good."(p. 58).Walter Laqueur's comments on Hannah Arendt as political commentator and "the greatest female philosopher of our time, perhaps of all times, which she might well be" (p. 49) find "a fascinating discrepancy between Arendt the political philosopher and the poverty of her judgment concerning current politics."(p. 50).Comparing Arendt to Raymond Aron, "As a political thinker, he was at least her equal, and his political judgment was infinitely better than hers.He was usually right, and she was often wrong.The list of alleged fools in Hannah Arendt's letters is truly enormous."(p. 62).A review by Raymond Aron in 1954 picked the element of her work that has become so dominant, "without being aware of it, Mrs. Arendt affects a tone of haughty superiority regarding things and men."(p. 61).

The final four chapters of HANNAH ARENDT IN JERUSALEM examine her relationship with the philosophers Karl Jaspers and Martin Heidegger.The chapter by Anson Rabinbach is mainly about a book by Jaspers in 1946 which appeared in English as THE QUESTION OF GERMAN GUILT.Germans did not embrace the idea.Arendt's husband complained, "despite all beauty and nobility, the guilt brochure of Jaspers is a damned and Hegelized, Christian-pietist-sanctimonious nationalizing bilge."(p. 300).

Peter Baehr considers Arendt, Jaspers, and the appraisal of Max Weber primarily in the context of a letter on January 1, 1933, in which Arendt wrote:

"But I am obligated to keep my distance, I can neither be for nor against when I read Max Weber's wonderful sentence where he says that to put Germany back on her feet he would form an alliance with the devil himself."(p. 308).

Finding some theological applications, Arendt wrote a moral evaluation:

". . . it is not so certain that those who have lost their belief in Hell as a place of the hereafter may not be willing to be able to establish on earth exact imitations of what people used to believe about Hell."(p. 319).

As Peter Baehr concludes, something strange about the mixture of issues involved in communication is complex:

"That some of the most profound forms of expression and dialogue do not conform to norms of transparency, `sincerity,' and consistency may offend some philosophers.But it may also add weight to Arendt's suspicion that philosophy and human experience are constantly at war."(p. 324).

Steven Aschheim, in the Introduction, quotes a letter Arendt wrote to Jaspers on April 13, 1961, in which she complained about Jerusalem:

"Everything is organized by a police force that gives me the creeps, speaks only Hebrew and looks Arabic.Some downright brutal types among them.They would follow any order."(p. 7).

The contribution by Susan Neiman, called "Theodicy in Jerusalem" (pp. 65-90), coincides quite closely with an entry in the index for Immanuel Kant, 68-84, and illustrates Arendt's mix of ideas quite vividly:

"In other words, you don't have to be a student of Heidegger to be ambivalent about philosophy.Arendt's strongest expression of revulsion toward the subject occurs in discussing the intellectual embrace of Nazism:Precisely the capacity to use well-trained wit to provide interesting rationalizations of Nazism made philosophy permanently suspect.But in just the discussion in which, for these reasons, she most vehemently rejects her interviewer's inclination to call her a philosopher, Arendt undercuts her own position.Defending her claim to have bid farewell to philosophy, she appeals to what she calls philosophy's essential hostility to the political--from which she immediately excepts Kant (Gaus, V, 45).Later she would generalize to describe Kant as `so singularly free of all specifically philosophical vices' (T, 83).Be that as it may, this is fairly respectable company to keep for one who insists she has said farewell to philosophy."(p. 73).

Heidegger is such a giant in philosophy that Arendt is able to see his escape from concrete politics into a more philosophical approach than the "interesting rationalizations of Nazism" in 1933 which have become such a large part of Heidegger's reputation.See the quote of her 1953 "Heidegger the Fox" sketch on pages 344-345.

The case against Arendt was not made strongly enough
I was present at the Jerusalem Conference and heard a number of the papers included in the present volume. From what I heard no one really addressed Hannah Arendt's moral failing in showing such insensitivity and coldness to victims of the Shoah in her book 'The Banality of Evil'. They too did not see two other areas in which she despite being one of the great political thinkers of the twentieth century failed her own conception of the ' dignity of man' One was in her reluctant and apologetic attitude toward her own Jewishness, and the second in her deference to the Nazi - sympathizing Heidegger. I would also say the whole celebratory tone of the conference as if the world had changed and now everyone understood that Arendt was after all right about the ' Banality of Evil' conference seemed to be wrongheaded and in itself slightly immoral.

A prophecy of the Israel/Palestine conflict
Hannah Arendt's reputation in Israel (according to this book) has suffered the consequences of her controversial views, but these are now becoming more openly discussed, witness the conference on her thought at the source of this book. This set of essays is a highly useful (and balanced) treatment of the 'banality of evil' controversy, and much else, including Arendt's prophetic cassandra warnings about what was to come in the hopeless muddle of the Israel/Palestine conflict. ... Read more

Book Description
Consisting almost entirely of new essays specially prepared for this volume, Feminist Interpretations of Hannah Arendt illuminates the diversity of contemporary feminisms while also generating new and suggestive readings of Hannah Arendt's political thought. The contributing authors' shared interest in Arendt provides a ground upon which to work out their disagreements regarding feminist theory and practice. At the same time, their shared commitment to some brand of feminism leads them to engage Arendt on an unusually wide array of issues, such as gender, sexuality, the body, politics, friendship, solidarity, identity, nationalism, and revolution.Recent developments in feminist theory and practice have prompted a reconsideration of Arendt that includes a critical reevaluation of earlier feminist judgments of her work. From feminist perspectives that interrogate, politicize, and historicize--rather than simply redeploy--categories like ""woman,"" ""identity,"" or ""experience,"" Arendt's well-known hostility to feminism and her critical stance toward identitarian and essentialist definitions of ""woman"" begin to look more like an advantage than a liability. Arendt's famous reluctance to identify herself as a woman and to address women's issues looks less like a personal problem of male-identification and more like a political stand that resists the reach of a symbolic order that seeks to define, categorize, and stabilize her in terms of one essential, unriven, and always known identity.Thus, the volume's authors move beyond feminism's traditional concern with the ""woman question"" to ask, further, what contemporary feminisms might learn from Arendt's conceptions of politics, action, and identity. ... Read more

Book Description
This highly original book is the first to explore the political and philosophical consequences of Hannah Arendt's concept of the banality of evil,a term she used to describe Adolph Eichmann,architect of the Nazi final solution. According to Bernard J. Bergen,the questions that preoccupied Arendt were the meaning and significance of the Nazi genocide to our modern times. As Bergen describes Arendt's struggle to understand the banality of evil,he shows how Arendt redefined the meaning of our most treasured political concepts and principles-freedom,society,identity,truth,equality,and reason-in light of the horrific events of the Holocaust. ... Read more

Product Description
TELOS 132 (Fall 2005), with Special Sections on Carl Schmitt, Hannah Arendt, and Politics and Empire. Includes articles by Michael Marder, Mika Ojakangas, Aryeh Botwinick, Joseph Bendersky, Alexandre Lefebvre, Sigrid Meuschel, Kai Evers, Helgard Mahrdt, Dean Lauer, Elliott Neaman, Matthias Küntzel, and Norman Geras. ... Read more

Book Description
Walter Benjamin was one of the most original cultural critics of the twentieth century.Illuminations includes his views on Kafka, with whom he felt a close personal affinity; his studies on Baudelaire and Proust; and his essays on Leskov and on Brecht's Epic Theater.Also included are his penetrating study "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," an enlightening discussion of translation as a literary mode, and Benjamin's theses on the philosophy of history.

Hannah Arendt selected the essays for this volume and introduces them with a classic essay about Benjamin's life in dark times.Also included is a new preface by Leon Wieseltier that explores Benjamin's continued relevance for our times. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

Of Benjamin, Dwarfs and Angels
The depth of Benjamin's pessimism has, I think, been underestimated.

"The story is told of an automation constructed in such a way that it could play a winning game of chess, answering each move of an opponent with a countermove. A puppet in Turkish attire and with a hookah in its mouth sat before a chessboard placed on a large table. A system of mirrors created the illusion that this table was transparent from all sides. Actually, a little hunchback who was an expert chess player sat inside and guided the puppet's hand by means of strings. One can imagine a philosophical counterpart to this device. The puppet called "historical materialism" is to win all the time. It can easily be a match for anyone if it enlists the services of theology, which today, as we know, is wizened and has to keep out of sight." Walter Benjamin, First "These on the Philosophy of History", p 253.

One can measure how far the contemporary Marxist (better said, the post or semi-Marxist) left has fallen by how many books have appeared, since the fall of the USSR, enthusing over the radically Universal and allegedly 'Progressive' nature of early Christianity. Walter Benjamin, who was first to place the wise but ugly dwarf (Theology) in the beautiful puppet (Historical Materialism) would be amazed (or perhaps not, see the letters between Benjamin and Scholem) to learn that puppet and dwarf are on the verge of switching places! That is, now the ugly dwarf (historical materialism) wants to hide in (and of course direct) the beautiful puppet of Christian theology. ...Crazy, you say? But even Habermas, the Keeper of the Flame of Critical Theory, has on occasion made somewhat similar noises. The best place, btw, to start reading about this new 'political-theology' probably remains Jacob Taubes.

But perhaps this emergent trend is really not so crazy after all. The only reason the Church became so cozy with Capitalism was its fear of Atheism. The collapse of the Soviet Union ended that fear. Now Christianity faces Capitalism alone. Or not, if the detente being proposed between the left and the Church is actually consummated. But every detente is a conspiracy of enemies to destroy an even greater enemy. The Church was with Capitalism because it had to defeat atheism. Now it is likely that the Church will join (a moderate) Socialism in trying to contain the 'soul-destroying' ravages of capitalism. This is only another move on the chessboard of History. ...But what did Benjamin think of History?

"A Klee painting named "Angelus Novus" shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. This storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress." BENJAMIN, Ninth Thesis on History, p 257.

Picture this Angel, wings pinned back by the wind, shoulders forced back because of that - the Angel of History is almost in the position of the Crucified Christ; except that this crucification does not end. It is this tone of almost ontological despair that was new to the left. This Crucified Angel is the perfect image of the left-wing theoretical pessimism pioneered by not only Benjamin but also Adorno and Horkheimer that split the intellectual left into two camps: the revolutionary and the cultural. And though no one is likely to admit it, the cultural left has quietly come to think of revolution itself as but another 'progressive' force piling up bodies.

It is one of the little ironies of history that this despairing fantasy described contemporary reality exactly. The Angel of History is the image of dialectical knowledge. Rather than seeing disconnected events this Dialectical Knowledge grasps History as One (single catastrophe). Always facing the past ('the owl of Minerva takes flight at night', Hegel said; meaning that dialectical knowledge is retrospective) the 'contemplating' Angel is overwhelmed by historical action - the storm that has been blowing since the expulsion of humanity from paradise - and can never Himself achieve effective action. His knowledge grows in lockstep with the accumulating horror, but each new historical event only results (i,e., gets 'caught in the wings' of our Angel) in more contemplation. So we see how theory (our Angel) is 'irresistibly' propelled into the future. And we also see that the Knowledge dialectical theory gains is precisely equal to the debris the storm hurls at our Angel's feet. With an irony that strives to be equal to the wind blowing from Paradise Benjamin ends this meditation by calling this storm progress.

This is perhaps why Benjamin insisted over 50 years ago that the dwarf Theology must guide the puppet Historical Materialism. Theory can never be equal to action; circumstance piles upon circumstance so rapidly that theory cannot effectively act, and if it does act (presumably) it only adds to the debris. Thus theology (myth) must guide materialism's hand because theoretical knowledge is powerless to help. Benjamin quotes the following remarks of Willy Haas, with approval, in his large Kafka essay;

"'The object of the trial', he writes, 'indeed, the real hero of this incredible book is forgetting, whose main characteristic is the forgetting of itself [...] The most sacred ... act of the ... ritual is the erasing of sins from the book of memory.'
What has been forgotten - and this insight affords us yet another avenue of access to Kafka's work - is never something purely individual." (Benjamin, Franz Kafka, p 131.)

(The last sentence was Benjamin's own.) Theology is a non-individual forgetfulness. Thus myth (theology) is the only forgetfulness worthy of the name. What needs to be forgotten by all of us is the unsurpassable fact of the futility of theory...

It is difficult for most to look such despair in the face.

Clarity and Brilliance
In 1940 Walter Benjamin committed suicide at the Franco-Spanish border fearing that he would be unable to escape the grasp of Hitler's regime. He left behind perhaps one of the finest collections of literary theory of his era, complete with lucidly brilliant essays on Kafka, Proust, Baudelaire, and general Marxist theory.

In this wholly excellent collection of essays, a remarkable introduction to Benjamin's life and work is provided by the late philosopher Hannah Arendt, who overviews his political formations and literary output. It's a model form of critical essay writing.

Perhaps the most famous essay in this collection is Benjamin's `The Task of the Translator,' widely regarded as one of the most important and thoughtful contributions to the field.

"No poem is intended for the reader, no picture for the beholder, no sympathy for the listener."

He argues that translation is a mode, and that the translatability of the work is the primary concern in the process.

Also included is an analysis of the philosophy of history.

Just a quick note
I have nothing to add to the reviews below except to note for scholarly interest that the essay 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction' included in this collection is not Benjamin's final version. (Neither is this title a good translation of the German: 'Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit'. Zohn's translation in the selected writings is better: 'The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility'.) The text in this collection is the 1935 manuscript, as originally published in 1936; the text collected in the Selected Writings, Vol. 3 is the final 1936 version that, as far as I can tell, was not published in Benjamin's lifetime. The difference between the two texts is slight, consisting mainly of some additional sentences here and there and some changed words. At least one of these revisions is, I hypothesize, the result of Adorno's criticisms of his letter to Benjamin of 18 Mar 1936.

Otherwise, for most purposes, this is the best collection of Benjamin's essays available for an introduction to his thought. This volume collects some of the best of his essays that are otherwise spread throughout the selected writings published by the Harvard U.P.

Brilliance
I picked up this book primarily for the purpose of reading Benjamin's critically acclaimed essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", as well as for his darkly poetic - and even apocalyptic - "Theses on the Philosophy of History".These essays are among Benjamin's most highly esteemed and are the last two selections in the book; regardless of whether you start with them or with the first essay, "Unpacking My Library: A Talk about Book Collecting", you are likely to be drawn into Benjamin's literary world quite quickly.

In many ways, Benjamin's writing style is quite unassuming; reading even his most profound insights is like reading a letter from an old friend.His writing comes in layers; one must make time to savor his presence.This book covers a range of subjects, from critical literary essays (the aforementioned "Unpacking My Library", as well as essays on Kafka, Baudelaire and Proust), to more hermeneutical reflections ("The Task of the Translator"), to straight up philosophy/theory ("The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" and "Theses on the Philosophy of History").

The 51 page introduction by Hannah Arendt is absolutely fantastic.It does not simply provide an overview of Benjamin's life, but sets that life within the culture of early 20th century Germany, focusing especially on the time between the two World Wars.She notes the influences of Zionism and Communism (and Marxism) on Benjamin's thought, as well as the broader cultural influence of a quasi-secularized Judaism in a culture where non-baptized Jews were still kept out of university teaching posts.Her introduction, like Benjamin's own writing, contains deep touches of the intimately personal (she selected the various essays that make up this volume).

In many ways, Benjamin was a deeply religious thinker.A friend of Gershom Scholem's (the founder of the modern-day study of Jewish mysticism), Benjamin and Scholem corresponded for a number of years.Although this particular volume pays little attention to his religious thought, "Theses on the Philosophy of History" (the final selection in the book which, in light of Benjamin's suicide, gives Illuminations a bit of a haunting finale), witnesses to Benjamin's poetic-religious insights:

"The soothsayers who found out from time what it had in store certainly did not experience time as either homogenous or empty.Anyone who keeps this in mind will perhaps get an idea of how past times were experienced in remembrance - namely, in just the same way.We know how the Jews were prohibited from investigating the future.This stripped the future of its magic, to which all those succumb who turn to the soothsayers for enlightenment.This does not imply, however, that for the Jews the future turned into homogenous, empty time.For every second of time was the strait gate through which the Messiah might enter."

Highly recommended.

Indispensable reading


Benjamin is arguably the twentieth century's most important thinker--if there is anything left to say about our lives, it is surely in this book. ... Read more