“ONE OF THE MOST ORIGINAL AND INFLUENTIAL THINKERS OF THE 20TH CENTURY”: FIRST EDITION OF ARENDT’S THE HUMAN CONDITION

ARENDT, Hannah. The Human Condition. (Chicago): University of Chicago Press, (1958). Octavo, original half black cloth, original dust jacket. Housed in a custom clamshell box. $1800.

First edition of Hannah Arendt’s landmark second book, marking her “emergence as political thinker of truly staggering range and depth."

Hannah Arendt is "widely recognized as one of the most original and influential thinkers of the 20th century"(Villa, Cambridge Companion to Hannah Arendt, 1). Her life and work trace "a passionate trajectory through some of the crucial areas of European and American thought in this century… She was relentless in trying to comprehend the darkness of her times" (New York Times). Fleeing the Nazis in 1940, Arendt became a visiting scholar at Princeton, Yale, and other schools, including the University of Chicago, where she delivered a series of major lectures that became the basis for her second book, The Human Condition. As one of her most influential works, it fundamentally marked "Arendt's emergence as a political thinker of truly staggering range and depth"(Villa, 8). Owner signature.

Book with slight discoloration to foot of spine, dust jacket with minor wear to corners and spine ends, a bit of rubbing, particularly to back panel. An extremely good copy.