On Revolution
by Hannah Arendt 
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Description
Hannah Arendt's penetrating observations on the modern world, based on a profound knowledge of the past, have been fundamental to our understanding of our political landscape. On Revolution is her classic exploration of a phenomenon that has reshaped the globe. From the eighteenth-century rebellions in America and France to the explosive changes of the twentieth century, Arendt traces the changing face of revolution and its relationship to war while underscoring the crucial role such events show more will play in the future. Illuminating and prescient, this timeless work will fascinate anyone who seeks to decipher the forces that shape our tumultuous age. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
I previously tried and failed to read ‘On Revolution’ back in 2013. It isn’t the easiest thing to get into, not because Arendt’s writing is obscure or confusing but because every paragraph contains a high density of ideas. The whole book is saturated in erudition, including many quotations in French, Latin, and Ancient Greek. It demands and rewards concentration from the reader. As a consequence, I read the latter 250 pages in two chunks just after drinking strong coffee. Your brain needs to be focused in order to appreciate this book, it seems. Arendt’s central thesis is that the American and French revolutions were substantially different on various fronts and that these differences provide useful lessons for the 20th show more century. Her analysis is subtle and nuanced; it gave me a great deal to think about.
I’d previously read commentary somewhere on how the American revolution began from a situation of relative plenty, as this New World was empty and full of natural resources. (Or seemed so after genocide of the indigenous inhabitants.) By contrast, the French Revolution was driven on by the urban poor rebelling against their struggle for subsistence. America didn’t really have an equivalent of sans-culottes; it had slaves instead. Arendt explores the consequences:
That the American Revolution was unlike any other due to absence of compassion still seems to echo strongly in the present day, as does its reliance on an exploited underclass of people of colour. Indeed, reading Arendt’s detailed, often admiring analysis of how the American political system employs checks and balances is deeply depressing today. Arendt had faith in the resilience of the American political system to tyranny; today the United States is rotting from the top down. Other matters discussed in the book have equal resonance for current affairs. This passage inadvertently illuminates a danger of febrile political analysis on social media:
I think this insight suggests one reason why current media discourse, which speculates endlessly about motives, undermines trust in all politicians. Hypocrisy is an elusive and dangerous thing. We are all hypocrites to some extent, as total consistency of principle and action is as impossible as it is undesirable; we must be willing to change with circumstances. But to what extent? Constant accusations of hypocrisy create a worrying moral equivalence between muddled motives and blatant dishonesty, as well as treating motives as more or equally important as actions. Recent experience suggests that is not going well.
On the historical front, Arendt writes thoughtfully on how the actors of the French Revolution could not ever agree to disagree (as [b:Ending the Terror|640628|Ending the Terror|Bronisław Baczko|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1347467826s/640628.jpg|21464302] put it) while those of the American Revolution were able to. Of course, neither managed to reckon with poverty and inequality, although at least in France it was acknowledged. Chapters four and five then proved heavy going, as they contain a great deal of constitutional theory. I found the subsequent final chapter much more engaging. This contains a farsighted comment on GDP, considering the book was first published in 1963: ‘Economic growth may one day turn out to be a curse rather than a good, and under no conditions can it either lead to freedom or constitute a proof for its existence’.
Arendt also contemplates at length the role of spontaneous organisational councils during revolutions, noting that these are praxis and get little to no attention in theory. They aren’t the work of ‘professional revolutionaries’ and end up co-opted, purged, and/or crushed as revolutions evolve into a reconfigured political world. She sees them as a critical manifestation of revolutionary spirit. This and much else in the book draws careful links between ancient philosophies of government, revolutions of the 18th century, and representative democracy in the 20th. These continuities and contrasts also cast some provocative light on the ailing politics of the 21st century, which seem to be succumbing once more to authoritarianism. Arendt has a fascinating and original perspective, albeit one that’s hard to distill into simple maxims. She is too considered and subtle a writer for that. show less
I’d previously read commentary somewhere on how the American revolution began from a situation of relative plenty, as this New World was empty and full of natural resources. (Or seemed so after genocide of the indigenous inhabitants.) By contrast, the French Revolution was driven on by the urban poor rebelling against their struggle for subsistence. America didn’t really have an equivalent of sans-culottes; it had slaves instead. Arendt explores the consequences:
Since [the Enlightenment], the passion of compassion has haunted and driven the best men of all revolutions, and the only revolution in which compassion played no role in the motivation of the actors was the American Revolution. If it were not for the presence of Negro slavery on the American scene, one would be tempted to explain this striking aspect exclusively by American prosperity, by Jefferson’s ‘lovely equality’, or by the fact that American was indeed, in William Penn’s words ‘a good poor man’s country’. As it is, we are tempted to ask ourselves if goodness of the poor white man’s country did not depend to a considerable degree upon black labour and black misery. [...] We can only conclude that the institution of slavery carries an obscurity even blacker than the obscurity of poverty; the slave, not the poor man was ‘wholly overlooked’.
That the American Revolution was unlike any other due to absence of compassion still seems to echo strongly in the present day, as does its reliance on an exploited underclass of people of colour. Indeed, reading Arendt’s detailed, often admiring analysis of how the American political system employs checks and balances is deeply depressing today. Arendt had faith in the resilience of the American political system to tyranny; today the United States is rotting from the top down. Other matters discussed in the book have equal resonance for current affairs. This passage inadvertently illuminates a danger of febrile political analysis on social media:
To be sure, each deed has its motives as it has its goals and its principle; but the act itself, though it proclaims its goal and makes manifest its principle, does not reveal the innermost motivation of the agent. His motives remain dark, they do not shine but are hidden not only from others but, most of the time, from himself, from his self-inspection, as well. Hence, the search for motives, the demand that everybody display in public his innermost motivation, since it actually demands the impossible, transforms all actors into hypocrites; the moment the display of motives begins, hypocrisy begins to poison all human relations.
I think this insight suggests one reason why current media discourse, which speculates endlessly about motives, undermines trust in all politicians. Hypocrisy is an elusive and dangerous thing. We are all hypocrites to some extent, as total consistency of principle and action is as impossible as it is undesirable; we must be willing to change with circumstances. But to what extent? Constant accusations of hypocrisy create a worrying moral equivalence between muddled motives and blatant dishonesty, as well as treating motives as more or equally important as actions. Recent experience suggests that is not going well.
On the historical front, Arendt writes thoughtfully on how the actors of the French Revolution could not ever agree to disagree (as [b:Ending the Terror|640628|Ending the Terror|Bronisław Baczko|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1347467826s/640628.jpg|21464302] put it) while those of the American Revolution were able to. Of course, neither managed to reckon with poverty and inequality, although at least in France it was acknowledged. Chapters four and five then proved heavy going, as they contain a great deal of constitutional theory. I found the subsequent final chapter much more engaging. This contains a farsighted comment on GDP, considering the book was first published in 1963: ‘Economic growth may one day turn out to be a curse rather than a good, and under no conditions can it either lead to freedom or constitute a proof for its existence’.
Arendt also contemplates at length the role of spontaneous organisational councils during revolutions, noting that these are praxis and get little to no attention in theory. They aren’t the work of ‘professional revolutionaries’ and end up co-opted, purged, and/or crushed as revolutions evolve into a reconfigured political world. She sees them as a critical manifestation of revolutionary spirit. This and much else in the book draws careful links between ancient philosophies of government, revolutions of the 18th century, and representative democracy in the 20th. These continuities and contrasts also cast some provocative light on the ailing politics of the 21st century, which seem to be succumbing once more to authoritarianism. Arendt has a fascinating and original perspective, albeit one that’s hard to distill into simple maxims. She is too considered and subtle a writer for that. show less
If you know nothing about Arendt, I imagine this book will be incomprehensible and at the same time seem really radical. Knowing a little bit about her, as I do, rather undermines that. Perhaps if you know a lot about her, you can swing back round to radical? That would be nice.
Arendt argues that the American revolution should have been the model for the 20th century revolutions in, e.g., South America and Africa, but instead the revolutionaries took the French revolution as their model. At the same time, she's not interested in pretending that 20th century America has anything to do with Revolutionary America (the best thing about Arendt, by far, is that she just doesn't say what you expect people to say. Defenders of the American show more Revolution today say that America is more or less a fulfillment of the 'founders'' intentions, but needs to be more like them (either by being more democratic, or by being more libertarian). Arendt says America today is really pretty unpleasant. Refreshing).
Why take the U.S. revolution as a model? Because it was not concerned with the 'social question.' The U.S. revolution, on Arendt's understanding, was entirely concerned with *creating* a strong state, which could hold together the various colonies, and provide an enduring space of political action. It was primarily a political, not a social, revolution.
The French revolution took place in a very different context: mass impoverishment. Once the revolutionaries had taken power, their attention was naturally diverted to this enormous inequality. They started to see themselves as defenders of The People--not a polity. And once you're on the side of the people, Arendt argues, you naturally accept no limitations on your own power. Hence, the terror.
Weird as this is, it gets even weirder when she explains why the U.S. revolution did not ultimately succeed: because poor people immigrated to the U.S. from Europe. Poor people don't care about 'politics,' so the space for discussion the founders set up was allowed to atrophy.
In other words, she wants to say that there can be no successful revolution where there are poor people. Why would you want a revolution where there are no poor people? So a self-chosen elite (her term) can talk about things rationally in a space set up for such discussions. What would they talk about? It's unclear.
How can Arendt combine great analytical rigor and an understanding of historical context (e.g., the American revolution could call on pre-existing legal and political systems at the state and municipal level, and needed only to replace the 'crown' as the sovereign, whereas the French revolution did not have such a history to draw upon, and felt the need to create everything anew, with terrible consequences) with claims as erroneous as her suggestion that the U.S. formalized and institutionalized the idea of political opposition (there is no 'opposition' in the U.S., as far as I can tell, whereas there is in Westminster-derived systems), and as horrific as "poor immigrants ruined America"?
As ever, her fear of structural *explanations* pushes her into political and even moral turpitude. The American revolution was not set up to deal with mass capitalist society, and so its institutions struggle in the present. But those concepts (mass, capitalist, society) aren't allowed into Arednt's analysis. To account for the failure of the American revolution--as interpreted according to Arendt's key concept of 'action'--she has to find an agent on whom to pin the blame. It must be the poor Europeans, because if you admit that there are poor Americans, you would have to explain how poor people came to exist in a country that, according to Arendt, lacked poverty until the 19th century.
Don't tell the slaves. show less
Arendt argues that the American revolution should have been the model for the 20th century revolutions in, e.g., South America and Africa, but instead the revolutionaries took the French revolution as their model. At the same time, she's not interested in pretending that 20th century America has anything to do with Revolutionary America (the best thing about Arendt, by far, is that she just doesn't say what you expect people to say. Defenders of the American show more Revolution today say that America is more or less a fulfillment of the 'founders'' intentions, but needs to be more like them (either by being more democratic, or by being more libertarian). Arendt says America today is really pretty unpleasant. Refreshing).
Why take the U.S. revolution as a model? Because it was not concerned with the 'social question.' The U.S. revolution, on Arendt's understanding, was entirely concerned with *creating* a strong state, which could hold together the various colonies, and provide an enduring space of political action. It was primarily a political, not a social, revolution.
The French revolution took place in a very different context: mass impoverishment. Once the revolutionaries had taken power, their attention was naturally diverted to this enormous inequality. They started to see themselves as defenders of The People--not a polity. And once you're on the side of the people, Arendt argues, you naturally accept no limitations on your own power. Hence, the terror.
Weird as this is, it gets even weirder when she explains why the U.S. revolution did not ultimately succeed: because poor people immigrated to the U.S. from Europe. Poor people don't care about 'politics,' so the space for discussion the founders set up was allowed to atrophy.
In other words, she wants to say that there can be no successful revolution where there are poor people. Why would you want a revolution where there are no poor people? So a self-chosen elite (her term) can talk about things rationally in a space set up for such discussions. What would they talk about? It's unclear.
How can Arendt combine great analytical rigor and an understanding of historical context (e.g., the American revolution could call on pre-existing legal and political systems at the state and municipal level, and needed only to replace the 'crown' as the sovereign, whereas the French revolution did not have such a history to draw upon, and felt the need to create everything anew, with terrible consequences) with claims as erroneous as her suggestion that the U.S. formalized and institutionalized the idea of political opposition (there is no 'opposition' in the U.S., as far as I can tell, whereas there is in Westminster-derived systems), and as horrific as "poor immigrants ruined America"?
As ever, her fear of structural *explanations* pushes her into political and even moral turpitude. The American revolution was not set up to deal with mass capitalist society, and so its institutions struggle in the present. But those concepts (mass, capitalist, society) aren't allowed into Arednt's analysis. To account for the failure of the American revolution--as interpreted according to Arendt's key concept of 'action'--she has to find an agent on whom to pin the blame. It must be the poor Europeans, because if you admit that there are poor Americans, you would have to explain how poor people came to exist in a country that, according to Arendt, lacked poverty until the 19th century.
Don't tell the slaves. show less
As difficult as [b:The Human Condition|127227|The Human Condition|Hannah Arendt|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328874274s/127227.jpg|462889], but it takes longer to pick up steam. Luckily though, Arendt keeps the momentum building until the end, starting around Chapter 3. Overall, Arendt spends too long discussing abstract philosophical ideas and linguistic origins and not enough time discussing the practical distinctions among revolutions, and what makes them work or fail. When she does this, the book becomes much more interesting, although any enjoyment is still hampered by the almost unbearably long sentences, each filled with as many as five different ideas punctuated by hyphens, colons, commas and parentheses.
Some sentences take show more several re-readings just to wrap your mind around everything she is trying to say. It is obvious the woman is brilliant (I've already used adjectives like "astounding" and "staggering" to describe her intellect in other reviews), but it's equally obvious that she either doesn't give a darn about bringing her ideas to a wider (read: "stupider") audience, or she's just not capable of adopting a more accessible writing style. I'm tempted to cite the former, just because [b:Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil|52090|Eichmann in Jerusalem A Report on the Banality of Evil|Hannah Arendt|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1283038161s/52090.jpg|1023716] did not suffer from the same shortcoming.
As far as content, I can only give a partial rundown since the entire book is so dense. Her discussion of the differences between the American and French Revolutions was illuminating and persuasive. She posits that the success of a revolution depends on 1) it being free of the misery surrounding an impoverished populace 2) its success in finding a sufficient authority to replace the deposed one. America got lucky, starting from scratch, and the success of their and any revolution was dependent upon a foundation -- in the American case, the foundation of a constitution and new form of government, which is something the French and most subsequent revolutions failed to do.
At the same time, The American revolution dwindled and the "revolutionary spirit" eventually died away because the founders did not do enough to protect it when enshrining the Constitution. She says they could have done this by protecting the political rights and freedom of the townships and town meetings. These small groups or "councils," she claims, are vital aspects that spring organically from any revolutionary movement and are the only outlet for true political expression by the common citizen. They therefore must be nurtured in a symbiotic relationship with the state if freedom is to be preserved.
The conclusion is particularly impressive, when she actually suggests a return to the ancient Greco-Roman political system in which not everyone votes, only those who are sufficiently interested in the political process. This government would inherently be both self-chosen and self-including. In this way, people not concerned with their public freedom are not forced to participate and can instead focus on their private lives, while people to whom politics does indeed matter will never be excluded from political decisions (as they inevitably are in our current representative system). I honestly don't know enough about political or revolutionary theory to agree or disagree with her authoritatively, and despite leaving herself open to charges of elitism I can say at least that her arguments are persuasive, even intuitive despite their complexity.
The ideas here are essential, but the packaging is unfortunately rather repellent. I would not recommend starting your exposure to Arendt with this book. Probably better to start with the far easier Eichmann, and then move onto the more important Human Condition. But this one is important nonetheless, especially for anyone interested in political theory or the concept of freedom. show less
Some sentences take show more several re-readings just to wrap your mind around everything she is trying to say. It is obvious the woman is brilliant (I've already used adjectives like "astounding" and "staggering" to describe her intellect in other reviews), but it's equally obvious that she either doesn't give a darn about bringing her ideas to a wider (read: "stupider") audience, or she's just not capable of adopting a more accessible writing style. I'm tempted to cite the former, just because [b:Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil|52090|Eichmann in Jerusalem A Report on the Banality of Evil|Hannah Arendt|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1283038161s/52090.jpg|1023716] did not suffer from the same shortcoming.
As far as content, I can only give a partial rundown since the entire book is so dense. Her discussion of the differences between the American and French Revolutions was illuminating and persuasive. She posits that the success of a revolution depends on 1) it being free of the misery surrounding an impoverished populace 2) its success in finding a sufficient authority to replace the deposed one. America got lucky, starting from scratch, and the success of their and any revolution was dependent upon a foundation -- in the American case, the foundation of a constitution and new form of government, which is something the French and most subsequent revolutions failed to do.
At the same time, The American revolution dwindled and the "revolutionary spirit" eventually died away because the founders did not do enough to protect it when enshrining the Constitution. She says they could have done this by protecting the political rights and freedom of the townships and town meetings. These small groups or "councils," she claims, are vital aspects that spring organically from any revolutionary movement and are the only outlet for true political expression by the common citizen. They therefore must be nurtured in a symbiotic relationship with the state if freedom is to be preserved.
The conclusion is particularly impressive, when she actually suggests a return to the ancient Greco-Roman political system in which not everyone votes, only those who are sufficiently interested in the political process. This government would inherently be both self-chosen and self-including. In this way, people not concerned with their public freedom are not forced to participate and can instead focus on their private lives, while people to whom politics does indeed matter will never be excluded from political decisions (as they inevitably are in our current representative system). I honestly don't know enough about political or revolutionary theory to agree or disagree with her authoritatively, and despite leaving herself open to charges of elitism I can say at least that her arguments are persuasive, even intuitive despite their complexity.
The ideas here are essential, but the packaging is unfortunately rather repellent. I would not recommend starting your exposure to Arendt with this book. Probably better to start with the far easier Eichmann, and then move onto the more important Human Condition. But this one is important nonetheless, especially for anyone interested in political theory or the concept of freedom. show less
Un assaig força pesat sobre les revolucions americana, francesa i russa i l'impacte que van tenir en les seves societats. Personalment, un assaig que es presenta com a atractiu i interessant, acaba fent servir una prospecció que esdevé difícil de seguir. Lectura poc amena i que narrativament podria estar més ben estructurada.
On Revolution is a classic analysis of a relatively recent political phenomenon. hannah arendt looks at the principles which underlie all revolutions, starting with the first great examples in America and France, and showing how both the theory and practice of revolution have since developed. Finally, she foresees the changing relationship between war and revolution and crucial changes in international relations, with revolution becoming the key tactic.
LIBRARYTHING calls this another version, but thinking was a work in progress with Mrs Arendt, so this German translation of On Revolution is considerably reviewed by her and should -if anything- be called a second, revised, edition while keeping in mind that -if we had but time enough and love there would have been a third and fourth edition (in all probability).
Arendt's examination of revolution as a phenomenon of modern politics.
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Author Information
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Born in Hanover, Germany, Hannah Arendt received her doctorate from Heidelberg University in 1928. A victim of naziism, she fled Germany in 1933 for France, where she helped with the resettlement of Jewish children in Palestine. In 1941, she emigrated to the United States. Ten years later she became an American citizen. Arendt held numerous show more positions in her new country---research director of the Conference on Jewish Relations, chief editor of Schocken Books, and executive director of Jewish Cultural Reconstruction in New York City. A visiting professor at several universities, including the University of California, Columbia, and the University of Chicago, and university professor on the graduate faculty of the New School for Social Research, in 1959 she became the first woman appointed to a full professorship at Princeton. She also won a number of grants and fellowships. In 1967 she received the Sigmund Freud Prize of the German Akademie fur Sprache und Dichtung for her fine scholarly writing. Arendt was well equipped to write her superb The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) which David Riesman called "an achievement in historiography." In his view, "such an experience in understanding our times as this book provides is itself a social force not to be underestimated." Arendt's study of Adolf Eichmann at his trial---Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963)---part of which appeared originally in The New Yorker, was a painfully searching investigation into what made the Nazi persecutor tick. In it, she states that the trial of this Nazi illustrates the "banality of evil." In 1968, she published Men in Dark Times, which includes essays on Hermann Broch, Walter Benjamin, and Bertolt Brecht (see Vol. 2), as well as an interesting characterization of Pope John XXIII. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- On Revolution
- Original publication date
- 1963
- Dedication
- To Gertrud and Karl Jaspers
In Reverence--in friendship--in love - First words
- Wars and revolutions--as though events had only hurried up to fulfil Lenin's early prediction--have thus far determined the physiognomy of the twentieth century.
- Quotations
- The momentous role that hypocrisy and the passion for its unmasking came to play in the later stages of the French Revolution, though it may never cease to astound the historian, is a matter of historical record. The revoluti... (show all)on, before it proceeded to devour its own children, had unmasked them, and French historiography, in more than a hundred and fifty years, has reproduced and documented all these exposures until no one is left among the chief actors who does not stand accused, or at least suspected, of corruption, duplicity, and mendacity.
- Original language
- English
Classifications
- Genres
- Philosophy, Politics and Government, Nonfiction, General Nonfiction, History
- DDC/MDS
- 321.094 — Social sciences Political science Systems of governments and states Political Systems Change in system of government Revolution
- LCC
- JC491 .A68 — Political Science Political theory Political theory. The state. Theories of the state Forms of the state
- BISAC
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- Reviews
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- 14 — Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Farsi/Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish
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- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 49
- ASINs
- 20