Hannah Arendt and the Links of a Thinker

Christo Datso, an HAC member and regular participant in our virtual reading group, recently shared this image with us of his personal Arendt library:

Here is what Christo had to say about his image:

"I’ve organized my Arendt library into two parts. On the upper shelf, you’ll find secondary literature on Arendt sorted into sections that are arranged in chronological order. (Each section is separated from the other by a bookmark.) I realized after having sorted all studies I’ve collected so far on Arendt, both in English and French, that during the ’80’s and ’90’s, the number of books written on Arendt was still modest, but then from the 2000’s and especially since 2010 (the two later sections), the number of books has expanded considerably, which is material evidence of the rising interest in Arendt’s thinking since the turn of the 21st century.

On the intermediate shelf, and on the first section of the third shelf, I’ve put Arendt’s books starting with her correspondence and then followed by sections centered around her key works, including Jewish Writings, Origins, The Human Condition, On Revolution, Life of the Mind, and others. In the remaining part of the third shelf, you can find authors having some affinity with Arendt, many of them being as she was herself “children of Heidegger” (Jonas, Marcuse, Anders) or thinkers with whom she shared interests (Raymond Aron, for instance).

It is no surprise that a library reflects the idiosyncrasies of its owner, so this partial view on my 20th century philosophy library might give you some indirect evidence of my interests in Arendt, her work, and who was influential to her and her writing. (Not shown in the picture are the works of Heidegger, Husserl, Jaspers, and Bultmann, as well as others like Leo Strauss.) Every thinker comes into connection with others; my library tries to reflect the way I understand those links, or as Arendt may have said, to capture something of the plurality of the philosophers in action."

Want to share pictures of your own Arendt library?

Please send them to David Bisson, our Media Coordinator, at [email protected], and we will feature them on our blog!

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