About
Hannah Arendt, born in 1906 in Linden (Germany) to a secular Jewish family, studied philosophy at Marburg, Freiburg, and Heidelberg, where she earned her doctorate in 1928 under Karl Jaspers. Fleeing the Nazi regime in 1933, she took refuge in Paris and then emigrated to the United States in 1941, becoming a citizen in 1951. Her major work, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), analyzes the roots of Nazism and Stalinism. In The Human Condition (1958), she distinguishes labor, work, and action. Her report on the Eichmann trial (1963) popularized the phrase "the banality of evil." The first woman to hold a full professorship at Princeton (1959), she later taught at Chicago and the New School. She died in New York in 1975.
* 1906-10-14 — † 1975-12-04
Major works
- The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951)nonfiction
- The Human Condition (1958)nonfiction
- Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963)reportage
- The Life of the Mind (1978)nonfiction
Key milestones
- 1933Fled Nazi Germany and settled in Paris.
- 1951Became a US citizen and published The Origins of Totalitarianism.
- 1959First woman appointed full professor at Princeton University.
Themes
TotalitarianismVita activaBanality of evilPower and violencePublic sphere
Sources: plato.stanford.edu · britannica.com · nationalbook.org
