Publisher's Synopsis
The figures that Hannah Arendt reflects on in this book have in common only the times in which they lived: what were the responses of Karl Jaspers, John XXIII, Isak Dinesen, Walter Benjamin, Hermann Broch, Bertolt Brecht and others to the external conditions of the world during the first half of the 20th century, with its political catastrophes, its moral disasters and its astonishing development in the arts and sciences? Hannah Arendt approaches these well-known characters guided by her philosophical conception of what a human being can and should know. One does not have to delve into the intimacies of people to grasp the traits that make them unique and immortal. With an exceptional ability to perceive the most unmistakable and profound human qualities, Arendt points out their way of being present in the world, of showing themselves in the public light, whether in their works or their deeds. She shows us precisely and without euphemism to what extent these figures struggled, floundered and stumbled because of their circumstances and their particular demon, to be, after all and sometimes in spite of themselves, true to themselves and to their deepest aspirations.
