Product Description

After the publication of The Origins of Totalitarianism in 1951, Hannah Arendt undertook an investigation of Marxism, a subject that she had deliberately left out of her earlier work. Her inquiry into Marx’s philosophy led her to a critical examination of the entire tradition of Western political thought, from its origins in Plato and Aristotle to its culmination and conclusion in Marx. The Promise of Politics tells how Arendt came to understand the failure of that tradition to account for human action.

From the time that Socrates was condemned to death by his fellow citizens, Arendt finds that philosophers have followed Plato in constructing political theories at the expense of political experiences, including the pre-philosophic Greek experience of beginning, the Roman experience of founding, and the Christian experience of forgiving. It is a fascinating, subtle, and original story, which bridges Arendt’s work from The Origins of Totalitarianism to The Human Condition, published in 1958. These writings, which deal with the conflict between philosophy and politics, have never before been gathered and published.

The final and longer section of The Promise of Politics, titled “Introduction into Politics,” was written in German and is published here for the first time in English. This remarkable meditation on the modern prejudice against politics asks whether politics has any meaning at all anymore. Although written in the latter half of the 1950s, what Arendt says about the relation of politics to human freedom could hardly have greater relevance for our own time. When politics is considered as a means to an end that lies outside of itself, when force is used to “create” freedom, political principles vanish from the face of the earth. For Arendt, politics has no “end”; instead, it has at times been–and perhaps can be again–the never-ending endeavor of the great plurality of human beings to live together and share the earth in mutually guaranteed freedom. That is the promise of politics.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #914258 in Books
• Published on: 2005-07-26
• Released on: 2005-07-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

Review
"A brilliantly erudite and imaginative book."
--Adam Kirsch, The New York Sun

“By insisting that politics remain a promise rather than a threat, Arendt offers a hope that history has yet to justify.”
–The New York Sun

“Arendt demonstrated, brilliantly, how our habitual view of politics as an instrument in the service of private liberty, material gain, and social prosperity actually increases the dangers posed by the modern world.”
–Dana R. Villa, author of Arendt and Heidegger and Socratic Citizenship



From the Trade Paperback edition.

Review
"A brilliantly erudite and imaginative book."
--Adam Kirsch, The New York Sun

“By insisting that politics remain a promise rather than a threat, Arendt offers a hope that history has yet to justify.”
–The New York Sun

“Arendt demonstrated, brilliantly, how our habitual view of politics as an instrument in the service of private liberty, material gain, and social prosperity actually increases the dangers posed by the modern world.”
–Dana R. Villa, author of Arendt and Heidegger and Socratic Citizenship



From the Trade Paperback edition.

About the Author
Hannah Arendt was born in Hanover, Germany, in 1906, fled to Paris in 1933, and came to the United States after the outbreak of World War II. She was editorial director of Schocken Books from 1946 to 1948. She taught at Berkeley, Princeton, the University of Chicago, and The New School for Social Research. Arendt died in 1975.

Customer Reviews

Drama Queen
Jerome Kuhn's introduction is a little patronizing of Arendt, but it's short and skimpy and won't deter you from plunging into Arendt's prose, beginning with her startling revision of Socrates. For Arendt, Socrates helped split politics and philosophy with one decisive strategy, his defense at his famous trial. It's typical of Arendt that she sees thought in dramatic terms, always with a terminal at either end of time, existing not so much in essential terms but in contingent, always partial and always temporary states of being--human beings reacting to strain or stress, and in turn launching something new to spur new reaction. Thus Socrates becomes interesting only when in peril.

Because so many of these papers were presented as reviews or for occasional purposes (such as lectures) perhaps this emphasis on the dramatic might be explained thus. But oh, how she loved to be able to use "The End of Tradition" as the title of a paper, its apocalyptic note gave her a sort of gleeful, if embarrassed, outrage.

The master text here is the longest, the INTRODUCTION INTO POLITICS, oddly titled with "into" in special italics as though there might be an INTRODUCTION "out of" politics, as I suppose there might. It reads like a novel. We haven't had this novella translated into English before now. Whoever translated it did a fabulous job of approximating Arendt's nearly colloquial, clean and rich English. She was a stylist before anything else and this collection, published on the 30th anniversary of her death, burnishes the legend. It's no disgrace and it makes you wonder, if more papers are up there in her archive just waiting for new eyes to take a new look.

very important book for understanding Arendt's political philosophy
I purchased this book from Amazon.com. It's a chief paperback and I received it very quikly and in a good state. "The Promise of Politics" is, I think, one of the very important books for understanding Hannah Arendt's political philosophy. I am very happy to have this book on a very reasonable price and in good state. Jeong Chun-Koo

Re-Thinking Politics From A Different Viewpoint.
Politics is considered as a means to an end that lies outside itself. When force is used to create freedom, political principles vanish. She wonders if politics do have any meaning at all anymore.

She finds politics to be the never-ending endeavor of the plurality of humans to live together and share in mutually guaranted freedom. This is 'the promise of politics.' She questions the relation of politics to human freedom. I think that her understanding of politics is worldwide and not American. I know only the U. S. version, and it is back-stabbing with constant lies about the opponent (a negative effect on the candidates and the voters), promises of things which will never happen (and the politician knows it when he makes the false promises). Politics is dirty business.

Today's politics is nothing like that of the Greeks (beginning), Romans (founding) nor the Christian (forgiving). Here we believe in the division between church and state, thereby keeping these two entities separate. They are completely different in precept and beliefs and deeds which seem to be foreign as Spain is from Japan.

This is an intellectual thesis written in the '50s (and my! have things changed since then -- no more Kennedys in power, no Krushchev who had a hole in his shoe, no more totalitarianism or corrupt Jews. She bases her political thoughts on philisophy. She has written EICHMANN IN JERUSALEM, THE JEW AS PARIAH, THE HUMAN CONDITION, THE LIFE OF THE MIND, and RESPONSIBILITY AND JUDGEMENT. She is a deep thinker on the subjects of 'revolution,' 'violence,' 'political philosophy,' 'Jewish identity,' 'understanding,' and 'love.'

She was born in Germany and migrated to the U. S. after WWII where she has taught at Berkeley, Princeton, University of Chicago, and the New School for Social Research. She died thirty years ago.