Reintroducing Hannah Arendt

Siobhan Kattago is an associate professor of political philosophy at the University of Tartu in Estonia. In addition to her interest in post-war European philosophy, she has written about the philosophy of history and memory in Encountering the Past Within the Present: Modern Experiences of Time (2020), The Ashgate Research Companion to Memory Studies (editor, 2015), Memory and Representation in Contemporary Europe (2012), and Ambiguous Memory: The Nazi Past and German National Identity (2001).

• Introduction Part I: Amor mundi 1. Why the world matters 2. The tears of remembrance and power of stories Part II: Thinking about what we are doing 3. Totalitarianism and the problem of evil 4. Statelessness and the danger of being merely human 5. Racism, revolution, and the ‘American dilemma’ 6. Our digital human condition and post-truth 7. Why the planet matters

‘Kattago’s superb book is a breath of fresh air, not only reinterpreting Arendt’s profound relevance to sociology but also opening new avenues for thinking about the most pressing challenges of our times—not least the unprecedented power of AI-enabled technologies, and the undervalued radicality of daring to truly love our world. A nuanced, timely and undoubtedly compelling work.’Patrick Hayden, University of St Andrews, UK'In this marvelous book, Siobhan Kattago illuminates Arendt as a thinker we shall (re)turn to in the face of the dark times looming large today, while she remains true to Arendt’s radical belief in new beginnings.'Maria Robaszkiewicz, Paderborn University, Germany'This book resituates a political reading of Arendt and, with clarity and depth, elucidates Arendt's actual and philosophical journey across continents and epochs. More than ever, Arendt's work is of decisive importance in understanding the world, natality, and the life of the mind and the work of the world in modernity. Siobhan Kattago's own Odyssean journey to understand this work of "thinking without a banister" is of huge import in delineating what Arendt offers to us with open hands and wonder in a new age of totalitarianism.'Martyn Hudson, Northumbria University, UK'The mark of a great interpreter is to find what the rest of us missed in the work of a great author. Wide in scope, subtle in analysis, and always morally serious, Professor Kattago’s book is more than a reintroduction to Arendt. It is nothing less than a renewal of her vision by one of our most sensitive and thoughtful contemporaries.'Peter Baehr, University of South Florida, USA 'This elegant book “reintroduces” the power, as well as the limitations, of one of the most provocative 20th century thinkers, informed by the best 21st century commentaries. Kattago demonstrates how Arendt’s thoughts about totalitarianism, the nature of evil, and racism, as well as the importance of love of the world, a free public life, and the right to have rights, are strikingly illuminating in our dark times.'Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, The New School for Social Research, USA