Sign in
Fall Must-Reads
Books
Kids
Popular
Authors & Events
Gifts & Deals
Audio
Sign In
Dec 03, 2013 | ISBN 9781612193113 Buy
Dec 03, 2013 | ISBN 9781612193120 Buy
Also available from:
Available from:
Dec 03, 2013 | ISBN 9781612193113
Dec 03, 2013 | ISBN 9781612193120
“There are no dangerous thoughts for the simple reason that thinking itself is such a dangerous enterprise.” —Hannah Arendt In these interviews—including her final interview given in October 1973, in the midst of Watergate and the Yom Kippur War—Hannah Arendt discusses politics, war, protest movements, the Eichmann trial, Jewish identity, and language with the incisiveness and courage that always set her apart.
Arendt was one of the most important thinkers of her time, famous for her idea of “the banality of evil” which continues to provoke debate. This collection provides new and startling insight into Arendt’s thoughts about Watergate and the nature of American politics, about totalitarianism and history, and her own experiences as an émigré.Hannah Arendt: The Last Interview and Other Conversations is an extraordinary portrait of one of the twentieth century’s boldest and most original thinkers. As well as Arendt’s last interview with French journalist Roger Errera, the volume features an important interview from the early 60s with German journalist Gunter Gaus, in which the two discuss Arendt’s childhood and herescape from Europe, and a conversation with acclaimed historian of the Nazi period, Joachim Fest, as well as other exchanges.These interviews show Arendt in vigorous intellectual form, taking up the issues of her day with energy and wit. She offers comments on the nature of American politics, on Watergate and the Pentagon Papers, on Israel; remembers her youth and her early experience of anti-Semitism, and then the swift rise of the Hitler; debates questions of state power and discusses her own processes of thinking and writing. Hers is an intelligence that never rests, that demands always of her interlocutors, and her readers, that they think critically. As she puts it in her last interview, just six months before her death at the age of 69, “there are no dangerous thoughts, for the simple reason that thinking itself is such a dangerous enterprise.”
“We are still living in Hannah Arendt’s world… It is hard to name a thinker of the twentieth century more sought after as a guide to the dilemmas of the twenty-first.” —Adam Kirsch,The New Yorker “The combination of tremendous intellectual power with great common sense makes Miss Arendt’s insight into history and politics seem both amazing and obvious.” —Mary McCarthy “[Arendt] took responsibility for observing the inhuman uses of power and for summoning her generation to judgment and action.” —Samantha Power, The New York Review of Books
Visit other sites in the Penguin Random House Network
Stay in Touch
By clicking Sign Up, I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Penguin Random House's Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
