Arendt, << uh REHNT, >> Hannah (1906-1975), was a German-born American historian and political philosopher. She won international fame for her writings on totalitarianism (government by dictatorship) and Jewish affairs.
Arendt’s first notable book was Origins of Totalitarianism (1951, revised and expanded 1968, 1973). In this study, Arendt linked the rise of totalitarian government in the 1900’s to anti-Semitism and imperialism in the 1800’s. She blamed its growth on the disappearance of the traditional nation-state. A nation-state is an area of land where the people share a common culture, history, or language, and also have an independent government.
Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963) is an analysis of the trial of German war criminal Adolf Eichmann, held in Jerusalem in 1961. The book created controversy because it advanced the opinion that Jewish community leaders had played a cooperative role in the Nazi extermination of Jews during World War II (1939-1945). However, critics generally consider the book a major contribution to Holocaust studies. Arendt’s many other books include The Human Condition (1958), On Revolution (1963), On Violence (1970), Crises of the Republic (1972), and the unfinished The Life of the Mind (1978). Her letters to the American writer Mary McCarthy, a close friend, were published as Between Friends (1995).
Arendt was born on Oct. 14, 1906, in Hanover, Germany, into a family of Jewish descent. She earned a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Heidelberg in 1929. In 1933, when the Nazis took control of Germany, she fled to France. In 1941, she again fled from the Nazis, this time to the United States. Settling in New York City, Arendt worked for several Jewish organizations. In 1951, she became a U.S. citizen. During the 1950’s and 1960’s, she taught at the University of California at Berkeley and at the University of Chicago. From 1967 until her death, she was a professor at the New School for Social Research (now simply the New School) in New York City. Arendt died on Dec. 4, 1975.
