Forgotten uprisings and silent dialogues: Hannah arendt and the German revolution

Abstract

Hannah Arendt is known for her celebration and critical examination of modern revolutions. However, the relative absence of the German Revolution from Arendt’s writings has received little attention in scholarship, despite the major role it played in the development of her political thought. This chapter examines the distinctive influence the German Revolution had on Arendt through various personal and intellectual ties. It suggests that despite the little discussion Arendt devoted to it, it constituted an important part of a broader “silent dialogue” Arendt had with the European socialist left, in which she implicitly incorporated various lines of thought into her reflections on modern revolutions while reframing them along the lines of her own political theory.