Changes

'''Hannah Arendt''' (October 14, 1906 – December 4, 1975) was a [[German ]] [[political theorist]]. She has often been described as a [[philosopher]], although she always refused that label on the grounds that [[philosophy ]] is concerned with "man in the [[singular]]." She described herself instead as a [[political ]] theorist because her [[work ]] centers on the fact that "men, not Man, live on the earth and inhabit the [[world]]."

Arendt was [[born ]] of secular [[Jewish ]] [[parents ]] in the then- independent city of Linden in Lower Saxony (which is now part of Hanover) and was raised in Königsberg (the hometown of her admired precursor [[Immanuel Kant]]) and Berlin.

She studied philosophy with [[Martin Heidegger]] at the [[University ]] of Marburg, and had a long, sporadic romantic [[relationship ]] with him, something that has been criticised because of his [[Nazi ]] sympathies.

During one of their breakups, Arendt moved to Heidelberg to write a dissertation on the [[concept ]] of [[love ]] in the [[thought ]] of Saint [[Augustine]], under the direction of the existentialist philosopher-[[psychologist ]] [[Karl Jaspers]].

The dissertation was published in 1929, but Arendt was prevented from habilitating (and thus from teaching in German universities) in 1933 because she was Jewish, and thereupon fled [[Germany ]] for [[Paris]], where she met and befriended the [[literary ]] critic and [[Marxist ]] [[mystic ]] Walter [[Benjamin]]. While in [[France]], Arendt worked to support and aid Jewish refugees.

However, with the German military occupation of parts of France following the [[French ]] declaration of war during [[World War II]], and the deportation of [[Jews ]] to concentration camps, Arendt had to flee from France. In 1940, she [[married ]] the German poet and philosopher Heinrich Blücher.

In 1941, Arendt escaped with her husband and her [[mother ]] to the [[United States ]] with the assistance of the American diplomat Hiram Bingham IV, who illegally issued visas to her and around 2500 [[other ]] Jewish refugees. She then became [[active ]] in the German-Jewish [[community ]] in New York and wrote for the weekly Aufbau.

After World War II she resumed relations with [[Heidegger]], and testified on his behalf in a German denazification hearing. In 1950, she became a naturalized [[citizen ]] of the United States, and in 1959 became the first [[woman ]] appointed a [[full ]] professorship at Princeton. She also taught at The New [[School ]] in New York City and served as a visiting scholar on The Committee of [[Social ]] Thought at The University of Chicago.

On her [[death ]] at age 69 in 1975, Arendt was buried at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, where her husband taught for many years.

Arendt's work deals with the [[nature ]] of [[Power (sociology)|power]], and the [[subjects ]] of [[politics]], [[authority]], and [[totalitarianism]]. Much of her work focuses on affirming a conception of [[freedom ]] which is synonymous with collective political [[action ]] among equals.

Arguing against the libertarian assumption that "freedom begins where politics ends," Arendt theorizes freedom as [[public ]] and associative, drawing on examples from the Greek polis, American townships, the Paris Commune, and the civil rights movements of the 1960's (among [[others]]) to illustrate this conception of freedom.

Arguably, her most influential work was [[The Human Condition (book)|''The Human Condition'']] (1958) in which she distinguishes labor, work, and action, and teases out the implications of these distinctions. Her [[theory ]] of political action is extensively developed in this work.

Her first major book was ''[[The Origins of Totalitarianism]]'', which traced the roots of [[Communism]] and [[Nazism]], and their [[links ]] to [[anti-Semitism]]. This book was controversial because it compared two subjects that some believe are [[irreconcilable]].

In her reporting of the [[Adolf Eichmann|Eichmann]] trial for ''[[The New Yorker]]'', which evolved into the book ''[[Eichmann in Jerusalem]]'', she raised the question whether [[evil]] is radical or simply a function of banality -- the tendency of ordinary [[people ]] to obey [[orders ]] and conform to mass opinion without critically [[thinking ]] [[about ]] the results of their action or inaction.

Her final book, ''The [[Life ]] of the [[Mind]]'' was incomplete when she died, but is still widely read in its current [[form]].

[[Hannah Arendt]]'s insights are also crucial here: she emphasized the [[distinction ]] between political [[power ]] and the mere exercise of (social) [[violence]]: organizations run by direct non-political authority - by an [[order ]] of command that is not politically grounded authority ([[Army]], [[Church]], school) - [[represent ]] examples of violence ([[Gewalt]]), not of political Power in the strict [[sense ]] of the term.