Thinking without a banister Essays in understanding, 1953-1975

Review by New York Times Review

THE OVERSTORY, by Richard Powers. (Norton, $27.95.) The science of botany and the art of storytelling merge to ingenious effect in Powers's magisterial new novel - a story in which people are merely the underbrush and the real protagonists are the trees that the human characters encounter. STRAY CITY, by Chelsey Johnson. (Custom House, $25.99.) Among the delights of this engrossing debut novel, about a single young lesbian mother, is how clearly Johnson delineates the psychosexual dualities and prejudices of our culture - how effortlessly she instructs even as she entertains. THINKING WITHOUT A BANISTER: Essays in Understanding, 1953-1975, by Hannah Arendt. Edited by Jerome Kohn. (Schocken, $40.) Arendt's urbane and unceremonious style is in full display in these essays from the last two decades of her life. Many of the pieces deal with political events and intellectual issues of the time, but they retain a striking relevance in the Age of Trump. THE SANDMAN, by Lars Kepler. Translated by Neil Smith. (Knopf, $27.95.) In this Nordic noir thriller, with resonant echoes of "The Silence of the Lambs," two Swedish cops can only crack their case by befriending an imprisoned serial killer. TO CHANGE THE CHURCH: Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism, by Ross Douthat. (Simon & Schuster, $26.) This book, together with two of Douthat's previous books, is one part of a loose triptych about institutions in decline. Here, Douthat, a convert to Catholicism as well as a columnist for The New York Times, focuses on what he sees as a crisis of the church, brought on by the accommodationist policies of Pope Francis. CLOUDBURSTS: Collected and New Stories, by Thomas McGuane. (Knopf, $34.95.) People living on the fringes - loners and schemers - populate these brilliant and compulsively readable short stories. You may find yourself tearing through the book like a flash flood washing out a dirt road. THE GHOST NOTEBOOKS, by Ben Dolnick. (Pantheon, $25.95.) Dolnick doesn't employ screaming demons or blood-dripping walls in this well-crafted thriller about newlyweds who have moved into a decidedly creepy farmhouse. His brand of haunting is much more subtle - and much scarier. HIGH-RISERS: Cabrini-Green and the Fate of American Public Housing, by Ben Austen. (Harper/HarperCollins, $27.99.) This history of a notorious low-income development in Chicago shows how public housing became a symbol for policy gone awry. BE PREPARED, by Vera Brosgol. (First Second, $16.99; ages 8 to 12.) In this winning graphic novel based on the author-illustrator's childhood, 8-year-old Vera, a Russian immigrant, longs to go to sleepaway camp like her American friends. The full reviews of these and other recent books are on the web: nytimes.com/books

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 30, 2019]

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Review by Booklist Review

Arendt is regarded as one of the most influential and controversial political philosophers and writers of the latter half of the twentieth century. As a refugee from Nazi Germany, she was deeply influenced by the terror of totalitarianism, and that subject as well as broad themes like freedom and democracy are covered here in selected essays, editorials, and correspondence. Within those parameters, these writings cover a lot of ground. Regarding revolutions, she distinguishes between those with political goals and those that aim to transform the social order. The former are often successful while the latter tend to create tyrannies. She distinguishes between Marx and the totalitarian distortions that were created in his name. Such horror, she asserts, arises in societies in which other sources of authority, including family, religion, and community, have broken down. Any charges against Arendt for lacking compassion are refuted by her searing account of the martyrdom of Hungarian rebels in 1956. This collection assumes familiarity with Arendt, which may exclude some general readers, but for many her writings, as always, are insightful, thought-provoking, and often unsettling.--Freeman, Jay Copyright 2018 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

This collection of erudite writings from esteemed political theorist Arendt (1906-1975) consists of essays, reviews, speeches, letters, and interviews published during the latter days of her career. Though perhaps best known for her studies of European totalitarian movements, Arendt took a keen interest in American politics, as shown here. The selections include ruminations on some of the most quintessential events of modern American history, including the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War. In "Kennedy and After," she reflects on JFK after his assassination, deeming him a great politician who "elevated politics... to a new, higher level." The book also acts as a continuation of and extensive postscript for some of Arendt's best-known theories. In an introduction for a revised edition of her classic The Origins of Totalitarianism, she finds a cause for hope in the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, despite its ultimate failure, admitting, "I am not sure that I am right in my hopefulness, but I am convinced that it is as important to present all of the inherent hopes of a present as it is to confront ruthlessly all its intrinsic despairs." Here and elsewhere, the collection gives rare insights into Arendt's personal opinions and reflections on her own work. his collection contains a variety that will be illuminating and fascinating for both Arendt novices and experts. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

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Review by Library Journal Review

Collected from the period that includes -Arendt's most popularly known work, -Eichmann in Jerusalem, these essays, letters, and other short and complete pieces are cause to celebrate. Among topics addressed in insightful and plain-spoken discourse are how Marxism has been misunderstood; the importance of sound government to public life and public life to human potential; the divergence between the values of Christianity and those of democracy; and the applications of various ethical lenses, including totalitarianism, the 1960 presidential conventions, and imagination as theorized by Immanuel Kant. Reading some of these essays here and now, the shock of how well they relate to current U.S. political realities, may strike a chord with many academic readers but also engage informed general readers as well. Kohn's introduction allows the latter to gain an understanding of how Arendt developed and polished conceptual ideas from concrete experiences as well as philosophical traditions. VERDICT Highly recommended for academic and larger public libraries.-Francisca Goldsmith, Lib. Ronin, Worcester, MA © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Cultural and political analysis by a noted and often controversial writer.By 1953, Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) had been recognized as a powerful political theorist whose early writingscollected in Essays in Understanding, 1930-1954focused largely on understanding and analyzing "a new form of government in the world: totalitarianism." Although totalitarian dictatorships occupied her thoughts for the rest of her life, this second volume of some 40 essays, interviews, conference presentations, acceptance speeches, letters, and reviews, edited and introduced by Arendt scholar Kohn, reveals a wide focus, including the relationship of theory to practice, American elections, the Cold War, freedom, civic responsibility, and happiness. Arendt defined herself as a thinker, not an actor; at a 1972 conference on "The Work of Hannah Arendt," she defended herself against objections to her stance: "I would like to know," asked one participant, "not only what is justice in a world whose injustice we all abhor, but how can the political theorist make us become more committed and more effective in fighting for justice." Arendt responded that she was committed to arousing thought but not "to indoctrinate." Most important to her was inspiring intellectual awakening, taking away "banisters from peopletheir safe guiding lines" and compelling them to think for themselves. Likewise, she refused to align herself with any political position: "the left think I am conservative," she said, "and the conservatives sometimes think I am left, or I am a maverick or God knows what." Some essays, such as her reflections on the 1960 presidential election that pitted Kennedy against Nixon, seem unfortunately dated. But in other pieces she emerges as startlingly prescient: in an interview in 1973, for example, she emphasized that a free press is crucial in a democracy. "How can anyone have an opinion who is not informed?" she asked; "if everyone lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but that no one believes anything at all anymore."A challenging, densely argued, provocative collection. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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IS AMERICA BY NATURE A VIOLENT SOCIETY?     It is highly doubtful that we know anything about the natural virtues and vices of societies, but it seems evident that a country inhabited by a multi­tude of ethnic groups cannot even be said to possess the nearest equivalent to natural qualities, namely, a national character. If "like attracts like" is as natural for human society as "birds of a feather flock together," one could even say that American society is artificial "by nature." Still, it seems true that America, for historical, social, and political reasons, is more likely to erupt into violence than most other civilized countries. And yet there are very few countries where respect for law is so deeply rooted and where citizens are so law-abiding. This was already evident at the time of the American Revolution, and since this central event is not remembered for violence, violence has not the same revolutionary overtones in this country as elsewhere and, precisely for this reason, is more easily condoned.   The reason for this seeming paradox must probably be looked for in the American past, in the experience of establishing law against lawlessness in a colonial country--an experience which culminated, but did not end, with the foundation of a new body politic and the establishment of a new law of the land following the revolution of 1776. For it was a similar experience that came into play in the colonization of the American continent, as well as in the integration of the many waves of immigrants during the last cen­tury. Each time the law had to be confirmed anew against the lawlessness inherent in all uprooted people. Americans know some things about the enormous equalizing power of the law, and they know more than enough about the initial stages of criminal violence which always precede--not, of course, the relatively easy assimilation of single individuals--but the integration of a new and alien group.   I think that second peculiarity of American society is more relevant to the present situation. Freedom of assembly is among the crucial, most cherished, and, perhaps, most dangerous rights of American citizens. The number of voluntary associations, organized on the spur of the moment, are still as characteristic of our society as they were when Tocqueville first described them. Their work is usually carried on within the framework of the law, and their pursuit of social, economic, and political goals is normally channeled through pressure groups into the government establishment. But this is not necessarily so, and every time Washington is unreceptive to the claims of a sufficiently large number of citizens, the danger of vio­lence arises. Violence--to take the law into one's own hands--is perhaps more likely to be the consequence of frustrated power in America than in other countries. We have just lived through a period when opposition to our bloody imperialist adventures--voiced first on campuses, on chiefly moral grounds, and supported by an almost unanimous verdict of highly qualified opinion in the country at large--remained not only without echo but was treated with open contempt by the administration. The opposition, taught in the school of the powerful and nonviolent civil rights movement of the early sixties, took to the streets, more and more embittered against "the system" as such. The spell was broken, and the danger of violence, inherent in the disaffection of a whole generation, averted when Senator McCarthy* provided in his person the link between the opposition in the Senate with that in the streets. He himself said that he had wanted "to test the system," and the results, though still inconclusive, have been reassur­ing in some important respects. Not only has popular pressure enforced an at least temporary change in policy; it has also been demonstrated how quickly the younger generation can become de-alienated, jumping at this first opportunity not to abolish the system, but to make it work again. This is not to deny that the Republic is still in danger of being threatened by a disproportionate growth of presidential power on one side, and by an even more alarming spread of "invisible government," the transformation of legitimately secret information-gathering agencies into secret policy-making bodies without any legitimacy whatsoever, on the other hand. We must not forget that the Ku Klux Klan and the John Birch Society are also voluntary associations, and who will deny that such groups aid and abet the outbreak of violence? It is difficult to see how this danger can be eliminated without eliminating freedom of assembly. Is that not too high a price to pay for political freedom?   The third factor, racism, is the only one with respect to which one could speak of a strain of violence so deeply rooted in American society as to appear to be "natural." "Racial violence was present almost from the beginning of the American experience," as the splendid Report of the Commission on Civil Disorders puts it. This country has never been a nation-state and therefore has been little affected by the vices of nationalism and chauvinism. It has dealt rather successfully with the obvious dangers of domestic violence inherent in a multinational social body by making adher­ence to the law of the land, and not national origin, the chief touchstone of citizenship, and by tolerating a considerable amount of mutual discrimina­tion in society. But nationalism and racism are not the same, and what has worked with regard to the disruptive forces of the former has not worked with regard to the destructive force of the latter. We often hear it said today that we are called upon to pay the price for slavery, the greatest crime of the American past. But the historical period at stake here is much rather the last one hundred years of Negro emancipation without integration than the roughly 250 years of Negro slavery preceding them. Neither in the South nor in the North, neither before nor after emancipation, were free Negroes ever treated as equals. The civil rights movement has been remarkably suc­cessful in putting an end to segregation by law in the South, demonstrating once more the tremendous power potential in organized nonviolent action. Even more importantly, it achieved a radical change in the climate of the country with respect to individual Negroes, who, for the first time, were assimilated in pretty much the same way that individuals of other ethnic groups had been assimilated before. "Tokenism" was in fact a step forward, not only because it opened opportunities for individual "exceptions," but also because it demonstrated that at least the educated strata of society were no longer racist. But this assimilation of the few was neither followed nor accompanied by the integration of the many.   In the North, where I think the problem is more acute than in the South, we deal with a group uprooted through recent migration and hence no less lawless than other immigrant groups in their initial stages. Their massive arrival in recent decades has hastened the disastrous disintegration of the big cities, to which they came at a time when the demand for unskilled labor rapidly was declining. We all know the consequences, and it is no secret that racist feeling among the urban population today is at an unprecedented high. It is easy to blame the people; it is less easy to admit the fact that, as things are handled now, those who stand most to lose and are expected to pay by far the greatest part of the cost are precisely those groups who have just "made it" and can least afford it. Impotence breeds violence, and the more impotent these white groups feel the greater grows the danger of violence. Unlike nationalism, which is normally limited by a territory and therefore admits, in principle at least, the existence of a "family of nations" with equal status for each, racism always insists on an absolute superiority over others. Hence, racism is humiliating "by nature," and humiliation breeds even more violence than sheer impotence. Thirty years ago, André Malraux wrote in Man's Fate that "a deep humiliation calls forth a violent negative of the world; only drugs, neuroses, and blood consistently shed, can feed such solitudes." Nationalism is on the rise everywhere, and the danger is that, for various reasons, it has become tainted with racism in many parts of the world. The racism inherent in American society for such a long time could indeed become "revolutionary" if the black backlash, in blatant disregard for the Negro people in America, should come under the sway of those extremists who think of it in terms of a world revolution, a worldwide uprising of the colored races.   The Negro violence we are witnessing now is nothing of the sort. It is political to the small extent of hoping to dramatize justified grievances and to serve as an unhappy substitute for organized power. "It is social to the much larger extent that it expresses the violent rage of the poor in an affluent society" where deprivation is no longer the burden of a majority and hence no longer felt as a curse from which only the few are exempt.* Not even violence for the sake of violence preached by extremists--as distinguished from the rioting and looting for the sake of whiskey, color televisions, and pianos--is revolutionary, because it is not a means to an end: no one dreams of being able to seize power. If it is to be a contest of violence, no one doubts who is going to win.   The real danger is not violence but the possibility of a white backlash of such proportions as to be able to invade the domain of regular government. Only such a victory at the polls could stop the present policy of integration. Its consequence would be unmitigated disaster--the end, perhaps not of the country, but certainly of the American Republic. Excerpted from Thinking Without a Banister: Essays in Understanding, 1954-1975 by Hannah Arendt All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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