Customer Reviews

Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World

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This book has become something of a classic. It unearths a mass of detail about Arendt's life - the pages on her upbringing and experiences before her flight from Europe are particularly memorable. However, the main focus is kept firmly on the way Arendt's thought developed during her life. The author [who knew Arendt in her later years] is well versed in philosophy and political thought and so her account becomes a useful companion to studies of Arendt's many contributions to modern thought: 'totalitarianism', 'the banality of evil', the loss of public space in the contemporary west and much more. This book is not the kind of simple minded attempt to reduce thought to biography that we see all too often. While it is no hagiography [Arendt comes in for some serious criticism on occasion], it ends with a sense of celebration for a life well lived, one of passionate thinking motivated by 'love of the world'

FOR LOVE OF THE WORLD

This work is an outstanding intellectual biography, detailed consideration of both the life and work of one of the twentieth- century's great political figures. I learned much from it, and it was a great pleasure to read it.
Among the revelations of the work to me was the depth of Arendt's involvement in Jewish communal work during her six years in Paris in the late thirties, and during her first years in America. The knowledge of her dedication and courage in this work makes even more painful one of the central episodes of this work and her life, the controversy that her `Eichmann in Jerusalem' book created. Here despite Young- Bruehl's careful defense of Arendt it seems to me that she committed a major error. This does not in my opinion relate so much to her much misinterpreted concept of the ` banality of evil' but rather through her tone and manner of writing about the victims. Arendt whose central value in life was friendship and loyalty to those friends without intention `betrayed' according to their feeling the `victims' and again without intending to seemed to implicate in the evil that they suffered.
This chapter of her life came after she had already published her monumental work ,"The Origins of Totalitarianism'. In this biography we learn how Arendt prepared for this work, for understanding the connection between the totalitarian terror of the Nazis and that of the Soviets. Here a central part was played by her second husband Heinrich Blucher her instructor in radical revolutionary thought. We learn how this work grew out of her classical philosophical training and her constant concern with the meaning of political action.
In fact I found the first half of this biography which tells us about her life and work leading up to the `Origins of Totalitarianism' to be more engaging than the second half. In the first half we learn more about her personal story, of the central role her mother widowed when Hannah was seven played in her life. We see the development of her strong , independent personality. We follow her in the world of studies with Heidegger, and Jaspers and in the story of her romantic liasons ( including the one with Heidegger) and two marriages. We are made to understand too the general climate of the time of Germany in the twenties and early thirties.
Again one of Arendt's greatest gifts was for friendship. And her life is filled with encounters with and friendships with remarkable people, a number of whose stories are told in one of her best books, " Men in Dark Times".
If I were to find fault with this biography which contains so much more than I have indicated in this brief review is that it does not it seems to me analyze critically the basic relationships of Arendt's life. For there are problematic sides morally to the friendship with Heidegger, who had a Nazi period- questionable areas in her relation to her second husband, however intellectually strong their connection was. I too think that for one who so valued the faculty of Judgment, Arendt's numerous political errors in judgment should have been considered here. As one who came from the world of catastrophe she was too ready to see America on the verge of , or going into catastrophe. And to my mind her late books `On Violence' and ` On Revolution' are the weakest of her offerings.
However it is necessary to stress that this biography really brings Arendt, and her inner life to life. It does this especially by bringing examples of her poetry, the record of her inward life. As I understand it this poetry has not appeared in a volume of its own and it seems to me that a dual German- English language edition of her complete poems , annotated properly would be a great contribution to our understanding of her and her work.
There are many `moving and great moments in this work and in Arendt's life. Among those moments are the description of her participating in a seder at the house of Louis Finklestein in the last year of her life. Here, she who had become a bit of a pariah in the Jewish world was as it were welcomed back home, and she joined in the singing of the traditional Passover songs. Another such great moment was her meeting with Blucher after her period in an interment camp at Gurs, when he too was a fugitive. This reunion set them on their way to America.
This book does a very good job of analyzing Arendt's standing as a scholar , her evaluation in the eyes of her colleagues, the great appreciation had for her by many at the highest level of human thought.
I think that if there was a chapter on her in `Men in Dark Times' it should certainly have the word ` Greatness' in it.
This book is a gift to all those who love the life of the mind. I cannot recommend it more highly.

I simply want to add a few points to the fine reviews by Freedman and Horner.
The original edition of this biography was published in 1983 and undoubtably contributed to the upsurge in Arendt studies that we have seen in the subsequent years. This newest edition includes a preface that situates the biography within that subsequent work.
The first point I want to make is one of agreement with the other two reviewers. This is a superb biography written by someone who obviously has great affection and respect for Hannah Arendt. As Horner mentions, Young-Bruehl knew Ms. Arendt. More importantly, she studied with her. The results of that training show in her ability to explain the development of Arendt's thought. Young-Bruehl is very clear, for example, on how Arendt's concept of evil changed from The Origins of Totalitarianism to her book Eichmann in Jerusalem.
I also learned much from Young-Bruehl's discussion on Arendt's hope for the council system as a means to effect radical and democratic change that is not controlled from above. Apparently Arendt saw some continuity between what happened in the early stages of the American Revolution and what happened in the 1848, the Sparticist Rebellion and the Hungarian revolt in 1956. If I understand correctly, Arendt had hopes that these were all variations on a new (post-Enlightenment) way to found a government. The idea is that revolutionary situations generate massive small attempts to organize locally that can be then used to create larger governmental entities without losing that mass democratic participation.
Finally, Young-Bruehl is good at showing how Arendt's various political concerns kept driving back at certain times to more philosophical work, e.g., how the follow-up work on The Origins of Totalitarianism eventually lead to The Human Condition.
Reading Young-Breuhl's excellent discussion of the Arendt's various books made obvious to me many points I should have caught earlier. And she makes me want to read some of Arendt's books all over again. And all this is being done within a well-written and moving narrative of Arendt's life.
This really is an impressive achievement. If you have any interest in Hannah Arendt's work, Young-Bruehl biography is an absolutely essential read.

Thought the book would be hardcover rather than a paperback. Large (sandwich?) stain on cover so definitely misrepresented as "like new" condition.