Hill notes that working on Augustine led Arendt to one of her central concepts – love of the world, or amor mundi . . . Arendt’s legacy is not a doctrine or a philosophical system. It is a bracing induction into thinking about the political and facing up to its promises as well as its failures. - New York Review of BooksHill sparingly and undramatically chooses her details (without, thankfully, passing over the gossip) . . . She is evidently so used to explaining Arendt’s ideas to nervous freshmen that each chapter contains a SparkNotes-like summary of the major works written during the time period in question. They are concise and comprehensible . . . Hill was well situated to go diving for gems in Arendt’s papers, letters, and marginalia . . . Hill spares us the clichéd, tabloid-ish critiques that make up a sizable chunk of Arendtian lore (“she was a self-hating Jew”; “I can’t believe she loved Heidegger”; “she thought Eichmann’s crimes were banal”; and so on and so forth). Instead, Hill calmly — and quietly, but without truckling — applies her close readings of Arendt’s most controversial ideas to our own oftentimes taut and illiberal social atmosphere. - LA Review of BooksSamantha Rose Hill repositions Arendt as a feminist heroine, "demanding, unapologetic and opinionated," ever ready to confront male dominance in a discipline that she came to reject: Midway though her American academic career she began describing herself as a political writer rather than a philosopher. - Wall Street Journalthis slim, accessible book walks the reader through Arendt’s life while introducing her major works and ideas . . . Most intellectual biographies emphasize ideas over personal details, which is generally the correct approach. But Arendt is different. Her work, as Hill repeatedly shows, was influenced by the events of her life. - The Washington ExaminerThis book is brilliant. It’s written by Samantha Rose Hill, who must know as much as anyone about Hannah Arendt. She’s dived into Arendt’s surviving papers, notebooks, and even poetry, spending many hours in the archive. She knows every little bit of paper that Hannah Arendt scribbled on. And what’s so great about this as a biography is that Hill has done something that biographers rarely do – she’s been highly selective in what she’s included . . . we have the benefit of a highly intelligent writer, selecting what she feels to be most important to bring out about Arendt . . . Here we have a very elegant story about Arendt’s life that brings out key moments and the most important themes in her thought. - Nigel Warburton, Five Books 'Best Philosophy Books of 2021'The stated aim of Samantha Rose Hill’s new Arendt biography, a slim installment in Reaktion Books’s Critical Lives series, is to introduce this perennially relevant thinker to new readers . . . A brief primer on her life and thinking is timely, given the resurgence of interest . . . While the aim of this biography might be to serve as a brief, lively introduction to Arendt, Hill accomplishes something richer. In introducing us to Arendt's life and thought, what emerges is an example of thinking as a dynamic activity . . . Hill does not present Arendt as a banister to hold up our thinking. Rather, she aptly shows that Arendt is someone to read now because Arendt is someone worth thinking with. - Women’s Review of BooksHill’s intellectual biography of Hannah Arendt is a timely look at one of the most impactful, if elusive, twentieth-century political thinkers . . . Hill’s Arendt is a thinker who moves easily from poetry to philosophy, from reflections on politics to an analysis of thinking itself . . . Hill writes lucidly about the key ideas and is particularly good on Arendt’s deep and lasting friendships. Arendt inspired love and loyalty among those close to her, and while her commitment always to "stop and think" led to sharp disagreements, it also resulted in meaningful, enduring relationships. - Michael S. Roth, Los Angeles Review of BooksIn light of the potential pitfalls in reading Arendt’s work, Hill’s biography provides a vital service . . . Each chapter provides a lucid introduction to the key points of each work. For those interested in Arendt’s work – and anyone curious about political ideas should be – Rose Hill’s work is an excellent primer. - SpikedAs Hill points out in Hannah Arendt, even in works such as The Origins of Totalitarianism – surprise bestseller of the Trump era – the political is invariably brought back to the personal. - Prospect MagazineSamantha Rose Hill's captivating new biography recounts Arendt's life and shows how she developed a rare capacity for independent thought and action which she retained even under the most difficult circumstances. - MetascienceIn Hannah Arendt, Hill explains that Arendt was more interested in the process of thought – of reconciling ourselves to the world so that we can properly deal with it – than in articulating transcendent truths (which, according to her, did not exist). Along the way, Hill illuminates a warmer, more personal side of Arendt than we’ve seen in op-eds and think pieces over the past few years. It’s an image that complicates the idea of Arendt as an unsentimental thinker, which I came to know during my time in academic philosophy. I asked Hill to share some of the images she looked to in crafting her portrait of Arendt, revealing a person who did not believe in progress and was not a utopian thinker, but wrote impassioned poetry and loved to shop. - Guernica MagazineHannah Arendt offers an extraordinarily readable 210 pages, combining sharp analysis with concise and precise summary of Arendt’s life and works. Twelve of the twenty chapters are named for individual article or book publications by Arendt, and the other eight are: Inner Awakening, Turn Towards Politics, Internment, State of Emergency, Transition, Friendship, Reconciliation, and Storytelling. Hill wields such a thorough knowledge of available details, quotations, and sources regarding Arendt that she chooses the most engaging, thought-provoking ones and integrates them into her prose . . . Her biography blends sophisticated philosophy, productive historical context, and ‘Easter eggs’ of human-interest story - Society for US Intellectual HistoryBlending biographical detail, sharp commentary and personal correspondence, Hill’s focused and fast-paced book contextualises Arendt’s major works by exploring the experiences which shaped the contours of her thought, engaging with a figure who continues to be widely read and debated as a guide to understanding contemporary political conditions. - The Marx and Philosophy Review of BooksHill’s book is an informative and coherent narrative of Arendt’s life and key ideas . . . As a brief biography, Hill’s book does its job admirably. - Joseph D. O’Neil, The German QuarterlyThis book could hardly appear more opportunely. Arendt’s way of thinking, though original to the point of being difficult to follow, appeals to an increasing number of men and women who question the meaning of their lives in the world we share. Arendt’s own writings and the books and essays analyzing them may seem exhaustive, yet Hill’s work does something new: without simplifying Arendt’s thinking, she opens it to contemporary readers who, in the darkness of our times, will find a friend, a woman, who lived through the darkest of all times. - Jerome Kohn, trustee of the Hannah Arendt Bluecher Literary Trust
