1906-1975
Philosopher, Political Theorist

A Philosopher of Her Times.

Early Years.

Life in Nazi Germany.

The War Years in New York.

The Origins of Totalitarianism.

The "Banality of Evil."

Arendt became a U.S. citizen in 1951. In spring 1961, as a reporter for The New Yorker magazine, she attended the trial of Nazi Adolf Eichmann, who was on trial in Jerusalem for his role in planning and overseeing the deportation and execution of Jews in Nazi death camps. Her account, published in book form as Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1964), portrayed Eichmann not as a psychopath or innately evil but as banal and thoughtless. According to Arendt's radical reformulation, Eichmann was not unlike the rest of humankind, and all people are capable of such evil. Arendt spent her later years writing and teaching about the evils of authoritarianism and bureaucracy.

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Derwent...