Politics in Dark Times: Encounters with Hannah Arendt

Cambridge University Press, 12/23/2010
EAN 9780521127226, ISBN10: 052112722X

Paperback, 408 pages, 23.5 x 15.6 x 2.3 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English

This outstanding collection of essays explores Hannah Arendt's thought against the background of recent world-political events unfolding since September 11, 2001, and engages in a contentious dialogue with one of the greatest political thinkers of the past century, with the conviction that she remains one of our contemporaries. Themes such as moral and political equality, action, judgment and freedom are re-evaluated with fresh insights by a group of thinkers who are themselves well known for their original contributions to political thought. Other essays focus on novel and little-discussed themes in the literature by highlighting Arendt's views of sovereignty, international law and genocide, nuclear weapons and revolutions, imperialism and Eurocentrism, and her contrasting images of Europe and America. Each essay displays not only superb Arendt scholarship but also stylistic flair and analytical tenacity.

1. Introduction Seyla Benhabib
Part I. Freedom, Equality, and Responsibility
2. Arendt on the foundations of equality Jeremy Waldron
3. Arendt's Augustine Roy T. Tsao
4. The rule of the people
Arendt, archê, and democracy Patchen Markell
5. Genealogies of catastrophe
Arendt on the logic and legacy of imperialism Karuna Mantena
6. On race and culture
Hannah Arendt and her contemporaries Richard H. King
Part II. Sovereignty, the Nation-State and the Rule of Law
7. Banishing the sovereign? Internal and external sovereignty in Arendt Andrew Arato and Jean Cohen
8. The decline of order
Hannah Arendt and the paradoxes of the nation-state Christian Volk
9. The Eichmann trial and the legacy of jurisdiction Leora Bilsky
10. International law and human plurality in the shadow of totalitarianism
Hannah Arendt and Raphael Lemkin Seyla Benhabib
Part III. Politics in Dark Times
11. In search of a miracle
Hannah Arendt and the atomic bomb Jonathan Schell
12. Hannah Arendt between Europe and America
optimism in dark times Benjamin R. Barber
13. Keeping the republic
reading Arendt's On Revolution after the fall of the Berlin Wall Dick Howard
Part IV. Judging Evil
14. Are Arendt's reflections on evil still relevant? Richard Bernstein
15. Banality reconsidered Susan Neiman
16. The elusiveness of Arendtian judgment Bryan Garsten
17. Existential values in Arendt's treatment of evil and morality George Kateb.