Hannah Arendt: A Legacy of Americans' Love for Freedom

On a recent trip to the Hannah Arendt Collection at Bard College, we came across this copy of Burke's Politics: Selecting Writings of Edmund Burke on Reform, Revolution, and War.

As is shown in the image at right, Hannah Arendt made a number of annotations to page 69 of her copy of this book. Each of the marginalia on this particular page is represented by a single vertical line that has been drawn next to a certain passage of text.

The first marked section reads as follows:

"In this character of the Americans a love of freedom is the predominating feature which marks and distinguishes the whole."

This is followed by the first sentence of the subsequent paragraph, which is written as follows:

"First, the people of the colonies are descendants of Englishmen. England, Sir, is a nation which still, I hope, respects, and formerly adored, her freedom."

Finally, and later in that same paragraph:

"It happened, you know, Sir, that the great contests for freedom in this country were from the earliest times chiefly upon the question of taxing."

Hannah Arendt had immense respect for Americans' love of freedom. How synchronistic that we honor this veneration at the same time that we as Americans return to that introspective act by which we decide who will lead us over the next few years.

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The Hannah Arendt Collection at Bard College is maintained by staff members at the Bard College Stevenson Library. To peruse the collection's digital entries, please click here.

For more Library photos, please click here.