A Report on the Banality of Evil

Eichmann in Jerusalem

'Brilliant and disturbing' Stephen Spender, New York Review of Books 
 
The classic work on 'the banality of evil', and a journalistic masterpiece 
 
Hannah Arendt's stunning and unnverving report on the trial of Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann first appeared as a series of articles in the New Yorker in 1963. This edition includes material that came to light after the trial, as well as Arendt's postscript directly addressing the controversy that arose over her account. A major journalistic triumph by an intellectual of singular influence, this classic portrayal of the banality of evil is as shocking as it is informative - an unflinching look at one of the most unsettling issues of the twentieth century. 
 
'Deals with the greatest problem of our time ... the problem of the human being within a modern totalitarian system' Bruno Bettelheim

A touchstone in the 20th century's thinking about morality and politics

Quite astonishing . . . her indictment of Eichmann reached beyond the man to the historical world in which true thinking was vanishing

Deals with the greatest problem of our time . . . the problem of the human being within a modern totalitarian system

The Freedom to Be Free

'People can only be free in relation to one another.' 
 
Three exhilarating and inspiring essays in which the great twentieth-century political philosopher argues that there can be no freedom without politics, and no politics without freedom. 
 
One of twenty new books in the bestselling Penguin Great Ideas series. This new selection showcases a diverse list of thinkers who have helped shape our world today, from anarchists to stoics, feminists to prophets, satirists to Zen Buddhists.

Three exhilarating and inspiring essays in which the great twentieth-century political philosopher argues that there can be no freedom without politics, and no politics without freedom. 
 
GREAT IDEAS. Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are

The Origins of Totalitarianism

'How could such a book speak so powerfully to our present moment? The short answer is that we, too, live in dark times' Washington Post 
 
Hannah Arendt's chilling analysis of the conditions that led to the Nazi and Soviet totalitarian regimes is a warning from history about the fragility of freedom, exploring how propaganda, scapegoats, terror and political isolation all aided the slide towards total domination. 
 
'A non-fiction bookend to Nineteen Eighty-Four' The New York Times 
 
'The political theorist who wrote about the Nazis and the 'banality of evil' has become a surprise bestseller' Guardian

A kind of nonfiction bookend to Nineteen Eighty-Four

How could such a book speak so powerfully to our present moment? The short answer is that we, too, live in dark times, even if they are different and perhaps less dark, and Origins raises a set of fundamental questions about how tyranny can arise and the dangerous forms of inhumanity to which it can lead

Perhaps Arendt's most profound legacy is in establishing that one has to consider oneself political as part of the human condition. What are your political acts, and what politics do they serve?

Her masterpiece ... Arendt's inquiry into the elements of totalitarian domination teaches us we must never let go of the fear of totalitarian government

A vivid account of the system of concentration and death camps that Arendt believed defined totalitarian rule

Remarkable for us, no doubt, is Arendt's conviction that only philosophy could have saved those millions of lives

Her greatest work is this 1951 classic ... More than any thinker it was Hannah Arendt who identified how those movements of ideas, racial theories, people and methods take place, showing how they fused with other forces - most notably European antisemitism - to shape and ultimately disfigure the twentieth century

Hannah Arendt was born in Hanover, Germany, in 1906, and received her doctorate in philosophy from the University of Heidelberg. In 1933, she was briefly imprisoned by the Gestapo, after which she fled Germany for Paris, where she worked on behalf of Jewish refugee children. In 1937, she was stripped of her German citizenship, and in 1941 she left France for the United States. Her many books include The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), The Human Condition (1958) and Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), in which she coined the famous phrase 'the banality of evil'. She died in 1975.

Eichmann and the Holocaust

Following the overwhelming success of Great Ideas' launch, with a million sold in the UK alone, Penguin now publish a further 20 short, astonishing works of non-fiction drawn from the most remarkable writing of the past two and a half thousand years of human thinking.

Hannah Arendt was born in Germany in 1906.  She fled Germany in 1933, having received her doctorate in philosophy from the University of Heidelberg.  Between 1933 and 1941 she worked in France helping Jewish refugee children emigrate to Palestine. After moving to the United States Hannah Arendt held many influential positions in many universities. She died in 1975.

Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are. 
 
Inspired by the trial of a bureaucrat who helped cause the Holocaust, this radical work on the banality of evil stunned the world with its exploration of a regime's moral blindness and one man's insistence that he be absolved all guilt because he was 'only following orders'.

The Portable Hannah Arendt

Although Hannah Arendt is considered one of the major contributors to social and political thought in the twentieth century, this is the first general anthology of her writings. This volume includes selections from her major works, including The Origins of Totalitarianism, Between Past and Future, Men in Dark Times, The Jew as Pariah, and The Human Condition, as well as many shorter writings and letters. Sections include extracts from her work on fascism, Marxism, and totalitarianism; her treatment of work and labour; her writings on politics and ethics; and a section on truth and the role of the intellectual.

Hannah Arendt

Lyndsey Stonebridge

Incisive, deeply probing, written with clarity and grace, it provides an ideal framework for understanding the turbulence of our times

Written in 1970, with the Holocaust and Hiroshima still fresh in recent memory, the war in Vietnam raging and the streets of Europe and America seething with student protest, Hannah Arendt's now classic work offered a startling dissection of violence in the twentieth century: its nature and causes, its place in politics and war, its role in the modern age. 
 
Combining theory and lucid historical analysis, Arendt argues that violence and power are ultimately incompatible, and that one fills the vacuum created by the other - an insight which continues to offer a valuable framework for understanding the chaos of our own times. 
 
Inclues a brilliant introduction by Lyndsey Stonebridge.

Hannah Arendt

Praise for On Violence

Incisive, deeply probing, written with clarity and grace, it provides an ideal framework for understanding the turbulence of our times

Books by Hannah Arendt

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