German-American political philosopher. Although she
had studied with Jaspers and Heidegger in Heidelberg,
Arendt fled Germany in 1933 and, from her new home in the
United States, wrote powerfully about the anti-Semitism of
the Nazi regime, describing its emergence as an instance of
"the eerie banality of evil." Arendt's "The Origins of Modern
Totalitarianism" (1951) decried the concentration of political power engendered by imperialism of every sort. In "The Human Condition"
(1958), "On Revolution" (1963), and "The Life of the Mind" (1978),
however, she expressed a profound skepticism about the prospect
that philosophical thought could significantly influence the individual
actions that determine the political structure of human culture.