If you know about Rahel Varnhagen, it’s probably because of Hannah Arendt. Arendt called Varnhagen, born Rahel Levin in 1771, “my closest friend, though she has been dead for some hundred years.” The two shared a background; both were well-off German-born Jews. They shared an intellectual daring and determination; while Arendt, born in 1906, would…
The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt By Ken Krimstein Bloomsbury, 232 pages, $28 In “The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt, a Tyranny of Truth,” a graphic biography, Ken Krimstein, a New Yorker cartoonist who teaches at DePaul University and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, depicts Arendt in a way no other book…
A week has now passed since Stephen Paddock murdered 58 men and women, and wounded nearly 500, at a country music concert in Las Vegas. Having searched Paddock’s home and computer, questioned his girl friend and family members, state and federal officials remain flummoxed over the killer’s motivation. Predictably, President Trump has answers where others…
Think about how much worse life would be without the internet. We wouldn’t have video chats on Skype. We wouldn’t have baby pandas sneezing on YouTube. And we wouldn’t have Chelsea Clinton getting into an argument over philosophy and Nazism on Twitter. It started when the former first daughter tweeted a Washington Post article on…
In 1951, the Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt published “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” her 600-page twin study of Nazism and Stalinism. The book received rave reviews; Norman Podhoretz, the Jewish New York intellectual, compared it to an epic poem. Then, 66 years later, in December of last year, Arendt’s book began selling at 16 times its…
Hannah Arendt, who wrote extensively about authoritarianism, the nature of evil, and power, is having a bit of a moment. Currently circulating the internet (my twitter feed, at least) are two interesting articles regarding the Jewish philosopher’s legacy. First, we have Zoe Williams’ piece for The Guardian, “Totalitarianism in the age of Trump: Lessons from…
Hannah Arendt’s library card was recently found in the French national library’s archives, along with the library cards of writers Stefan Zweig and Marguerite Yourcenar. The treasure trove of library cards includes period photographs, home addresses, signatures, and most tantalizingly, listed professions. Zweig, for instance, identified himself as a “homme des lettres” or man of…
The philosopher Hannah Arendt was one of many—-mostly Jewish—intellectuals, including Albert Einstein—with enough perspective to escape from Germany as Hitler rose to power. Her reflections, years later, on the moral psychology of her countless fellow countrymen who came to embrace fascism are timelessly revealing. And although Hitler was never actually elected, he nonetheless managed to…
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