Arendt, Hannah (1906–1975)

German-born US political philosopher. Her concerns included totalitarianism, the nature of evil, and the erosion of public participation in the political process. Her works include Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963) and On Violence (1972).

In The Origins of Modern Totalitarianism (1951), she pointed out the similarities between Nazism and Soviet communism, and in her report of the trial of a leading Nazi war criminal, Eichmann in Jerusalem, she coined the phrase ‘the banality of evil’ to describe how bureaucratic efficiency can facilitate the acceptance of the most terrible deeds.

Arendt received her PhD from Heidelberg University in 1928. During World War II she was research director for the Conference on Jewish Relations.

Arendt studied at Heidelberg under philosophers Edmund Husserl and Karl Jaspers. With the rise of the Nazis in Germany, she moved to France, then emigrated to the USA in 1940. Other works include The Human Condition (1958) and On Revolution (1963).