Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) was one of the most important political philosophers of our century. Born in Germany, Arendt studied with Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers. She escaped after the Nazis came to power; remained stateless until 1951, when she became a U.S. citizen; was the first woman appointed to a full professorship at Princeton; and became a prominent "public intellectual" whose positions were often controversial. Her major works include The Origins of Totalitarianism, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, The Human Condition, and The Life of the Mind (unfinished at her death). Now, twenty years later, this collection of fifteen essays brings her work into dialogue with those philosophical views that are at center stage today -- in critical theory, communitarianism, virtue theory, and feminism. The essays are divided into four sections: Political Action and Judgment; Ethics and the Nature of Evil; Self and World; and Gender and Jewishness. An extensive bibliography of work on Arendt in English is included as an appendix.
Larry May is Professor of Philosophy at Washington University in St. Louis. Jerome Kohn is Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at Cooper Union and Lecturer in Humanities at the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research.
