Elizabeth Minnich received her doctorate from the Graduate Faculty of The New School under the direction of Hannah Arendt, whom she served as teaching assistant. Following twenty-five years as professor at the Union Institute, she was appointed Distinguished Fellow, President’s Office, the AmericanAssociation of Colleges and Universities. She is the author of Transforming Knowledge and co-author of The Fox in the Henhouse: How Privatization Threatens Democracy.

• AcknowledgmentsPreface to the Expanded Edition: If Not Now, When?Introduction: What Were They Thinking? PART I: EVIL—THINKING THE UNTHINKABLEChapter 1: Truth and Fiction: Camus’ The PlagueChapter 2: Thinking about Not-ThinkinghChapter 3: Changing MindsChapter 4: Escaping Explanations, ExcusesChapter 5: Meaning, Truth, Rationality, Knowledge, and ThinkingChapter 6: Romanticizing EvilChapter 7: Intensive Evil, Extensive EvilChapter 8: The Ordinary for Good and IllPART II: GOODNESS: WHAT IS TO BE DONE?Chapter 9: Phillip Hallie: It Takes a VillageChapter 10: Preparing for Extensive Goodness?Chapter 11: Looking for Good Beyond the VillageChapter 12: The Banality of Goodness?PART III: FERTILE GROUNDS FOR EXTENSIVE EVILChapter 13: Seeding Prepared GroundChapter 14: Large-Scale Enclosures: Meaning SystemsChapter 15: Physical Enclosures of Bodies, MindsChapter 16: Laying out the StrandsChapter 17: Why Not Lie?Expanded Afterword: Teaching ThinkingNotesBibliography: Sources and ResourcesIndexAuthor Biography

This expanded edition of The Evil of Banality, which I greatly admire, could hardly be more timely. The whole matter of evil being done thoughtlessly looms larger in every day’s headlines. The book, in its wide-ranging display of the dangers of mindless complicity as well as complacency in the face of spreading chaos, is essential reading for today. Read this book. It will lighten your way in the darkness of our times.