Hannah Arendt

A revelatory, long-awaited, and definitive intellectual biography of Hannah Arendt, one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century

Drawing on newly discovered archival materials and previously overlooked documents—from both Germany, where Arendt was born to a Jewish family in 1906, and the United States, where she was a citizen from 1950—Thomas Meyer tells the story of an intellectual icon whose character and ideas continue to captivate and challenge us to this day. Tracing anew Arendt’s journey from Königsberg to Paris, where she fled to after being imprisoned by the Gestapo in 1933, and finally to New York, Meyer illuminates her formative years and the development of her radical and brilliant books, as well as her long love affair with Martin Heidegger, whose Nazism posed a deadly threat to Arendt’s life and family. His account centers on two pivotal phases—Arendt’s years in Paris after fleeing Nazi Germany and her years in the U.S. leading up to the landmark publication of Origins of Totalitarianism—providing not only a meticulous reconstruction of her life but also a compelling invitation to rethink her legacy for our times.

At a time of acute political polarization, with liberalism in crisis and urgent debates about freedom, responsibility, and truth unfolding all around, Arendt’s writings and ideas resonate more powerfully than ever. Meyer’s account of her extraordinary life is groundbreaking and sensational, not just for his illuminating and peerless research, but also for his incisive exploration of what Arendt’s work has meant over the decades—and continues to mean for us today.Thomas Meyer, born 1966 in Bernkastel-Kues, specializes in modern German philosophy and the history of ideas. He earned his doctorate in 2003 and completed his habilitation in 2009. Meyer is currently a professor of philosophy at LMU Munich. He has held teaching positions at the Universities of Chicago, Vanderbilt (Nashville), Wake Forest (Winston-Salem), Zurich, and Graz. His writing has appeared in leading publications such as DIE ZEIT, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Jüdische Allgemeine, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, BR2, and Deutschlandfunk. He has published extensively on Ernst Cassirer, as well as on Jewish philosophy and theology. His 2006 biography of Ernst Cassirer was nominated for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize. His most recent works include Hannah Arendt: Die Biografie and Über Palästina (ed.).
Shelley Frisch's translations from German, which include biographies of Friedrich Nietzsche, Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Marlene Dietrich/Leni Riefenstahl (dual biography), and Franz Kafka, along with many other works of fiction and nonfiction, have been awarded numerous translation prizes. Frisch has chaired the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize jury since 2015. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey.