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A German Jewish refugee suffering tremendous personal and political upheaval during the years of Nazi conquest, Hannah Arendt turned to classical literature and drama as she struggled to make sense of the terrible events of her time. Studying fiction, plays, and poetry, she found a way to meld theoretical political philosophy and concrete personal commitment to action. Among her literary resources, the epics and plays of ancient Greece provided the ideal balance of politics and culture. In Hannah Arendt and the Politics of Tragedy, Pirro focuses especially on the influence of Greek tragedy on Arendt's political writings. Pirro casts Arendt's political thought as tragic storytelling, crafted to inspire her audience both to appreciate political freedoms and to act on those freedoms by participating in public life. Echoing an affinity for Greek drama common in the tradition of German philosophy and letters, Arendt draws on tragic characters, scenes, and dramatic conventions, as well as theories, to assess the maddening and often fatal contradictions of political life in modern times. Classical narratives of heroic achievements and failures shape the structure and content of Arendtian thought, as when she compares Jewish refugees' attempts to confront their stateless condition during the 1930s and 1940s to Ulysses's mythical quest. Turning her attention in the postwar years to the promise and limits of political freedom in American life, Arendt invokes Sophocles's last drama, Oedipus at Colonus, in an attempt to outline an alternative, aesthetic sense of political authority in the American Republic. In providing this new avenue of approach to Arendt, Pirro shows how elements of Greek tragedy helped her grapple with the problems of modern politics in the chaos of a universe without rules. Arendt enthusiasts and readers interested in the classics and politics will find fresh ideas to consider in Hannah Arendt and the Politics of Tragedy.
This study of the political significance of theories of tragedy and ordinary language uses of "tragedy" offers a fresh perspective on democracy in contemporary times.
For the first time, the full story of the conflict between two of the twentieth century’s most important thinkers—and the lessons their disagreements continue to offer Two of the most iconic thinkers of the twentieth century, Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) and Isaiah Berlin (1909–1997) fundamentally disagreed on central issues in politics, history and philosophy. In spite of their overlapping lives and experiences as Jewish émigré intellectuals, Berlin disliked Arendt intensely, saying that she represented “everything that I detest most,” while Arendt met Berlin’s hostility with indifference and suspicion. Written in a lively style, and filled with drama, tragedy and passion, Hannah Arendt and Isaiah Berlin tells, for the first time, the full story of the fraught relationship between these towering figures, and shows how their profoundly different views continue to offer important lessons for political thought today. Drawing on a wealth of new archival material, Kei Hiruta traces the Arendt–Berlin conflict, from their first meeting in wartime New York through their widening intellectual chasm during the 1950s, the controversy over Arendt’s 1963 book Eichmann in Jerusalem, their final missed opportunity to engage with each other at a 1967 conference and Berlin’s continuing animosity toward Arendt after her death. Hiruta blends political philosophy and intellectual history to examine key issues that simultaneously connected and divided Arendt and Berlin, including the nature of totalitarianism, evil and the Holocaust, human agency and moral responsibility, Zionism, American democracy, British imperialism and the Hungarian Revolution. But, most of all, Arendt and Berlin disagreed over a question that goes to the heart of the human condition: what does it mean to be free?
A new portrait of Henry Kissinger focusing on the fundamental ideas underlying his policies: Realism, balance of power, and national interest. Few public officials have provoked such intense controversy as Henry Kissinger. During his time in the Nixon and Ford administrations, he came to be admired and hated in equal measure. Notoriously, he believed that foreign affairs ought to be based primarily on the power relationships of a situation, not simply on ethics. He went so far as to argue that under certain circumstances America had to protect its national interests even if that meant repressing other countries’ attempts at democracy. For this reason, many today on both the right and left dismiss him as a latter-day Machiavelli, ignoring the breadth and complexity of his thought. With The Inevitability of Tragedy, Barry Gewen corrects this shallow view, presenting the fascinating story of Kissinger’s development as both a strategist and an intellectual and examining his unique role in government through his ideas. It analyzes his contentious policies in Vietnam and Chile, guided by a fresh understanding of his definition of Realism, the belief that world politics is based on an inevitable, tragic competition for power. Crucially, Gewen places Kissinger’s pessimistic thought in a European context. He considers how Kissinger was deeply impacted by his experience as a refugee from Nazi Germany, and explores the links between his notions of power and those of his mentor, Hans Morgenthau—the father of Realism—as well as those of two other German-Jewish émigrés who shared his concerns about the weaknesses of democracy: Leo Strauss and Hannah Arendt. The Inevitability of Tragedy offers a thoughtful perspective on the origins of Kissinger’s sober worldview and argues that a reconsideration of his career is essential at a time when American foreign policy lacks direction.
To do political theory is to tell a story about human beings and their communities. In this witty and elegant book, Michael Brint provides a brilliant reading of some of the greatest stories told in the history of Western political theory. The unifying theme is the issue of differences and the conflicts they generate. Brint's targets are those thin
Hannah Arendt is one of the most important political theorists of the 20th century. This book focuses on how, against the professionalized discourses of theory, Arendt insists on the greater political importance of the ordinary activity of thinking.
In an utterly unique approach to biography, On Love and Tyranny traces the life and work of the iconic German Jewish intellectual Hannah Arendt, whose political philosophy and understandings of evil, totalitarianism, love, and exile prove essential amid the rise of the refugee crisis and authoritarian regimes around the world. What can we learn from the iconic political thinker Hannah Arendt? Well, the short answer may be: to love the world so much that we think change is possible. The life of Hannah Arendt spans a crucial chapter in the history of the Western world, a period that witnessed the rise of the Nazi regime and the crises of the Cold War, a time when our ideas about humanity and its value, its guilt and responsibility, were formulated. Arendt’s thinking is intimately entwined with her life and the concrete experiences she drew from her encounters with evil, but also from love, exile, statelessness, and longing. This strikingly original work moves from political themes that wholly consume us today, such as the ways in which democracies can so easily become totalitarian states; to the deeply personal, in intimate recollections of Arendt’s famous lovers and friends, including Heidegger, Benjamin, de Beauvoir, and Sartre; and to wider moral deconstructions of what it means to be human and what it means to be humane. On Love and Tyranny brings to life a Hannah Arendt for our days, a timeless intellectual whose investigations into the nature of evil and of love are eerily and urgently relevant half a century later.
For the first time, the full story of the conflict between two of the twentieth century’s most important thinkers—and the lessons their disagreements continue to offer Two of the most iconic thinkers of the twentieth century, Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) and Isaiah Berlin (1909–1997) fundamentally disagreed on central issues in politics, history and philosophy. In spite of their overlapping lives and experiences as Jewish émigré intellectuals, Berlin disliked Arendt intensely, saying that she represented “everything that I detest most,” while Arendt met Berlin’s hostility with indifference and suspicion. Written in a lively style, and filled with drama, tragedy and passion, Hannah Arendt and Isaiah Berlin tells, for the first time, the full story of the fraught relationship between these towering figures, and shows how their profoundly different views continue to offer important lessons for political thought today. Drawing on a wealth of new archival material, Kei Hiruta traces the Arendt–Berlin conflict, from their first meeting in wartime New York through their widening intellectual chasm during the 1950s, the controversy over Arendt’s 1963 book Eichmann in Jerusalem, their final missed opportunity to engage with each other at a 1967 conference and Berlin’s continuing animosity toward Arendt after her death. Hiruta blends political philosophy and intellectual history to examine key issues that simultaneously connected and divided Arendt and Berlin, including the nature of totalitarianism, evil and the Holocaust, human agency and moral responsibility, Zionism, American democracy, British imperialism and the Hungarian Revolution. But, most of all, Arendt and Berlin disagreed over a question that goes to the heart of the human condition: what does it mean to be free?
The new study provides a fresh and timely reassessment of the political philosophy of Hannah Arendt. While analysing the central themes of Arendt's work, Phillip Hansen also shows that her work makes a significant contribution to contemporary debates. Specifically, Hansen argues that Arendt provides a powerful account of what it means to think and act politically. This account can establish the grounds for a contemporary citizen rationality in the face of threat to a genuine politics. Amoung other issues, Hansen discusses Arendt's conception of history and historical action; her account of politics and of the distinction between public and private; her analysis of totalitarianism as the most ominous form of 'false ' politics; and her treatment of revolution. The book is a balanced and opportune reappraisal of Arendt's contributions to social and political theory. It will be welcomed by students and scholars in politics, sociology and philosophy.