1906-1975
An intellectual portrait by Alasdair Clayre
In the 1930s the German philosopher Hannah Arendt escaped from the Gestapo and made her way via Switzerland and Spain to America, where she became one of the country's most prominent post-war thinkers through such books as The Origins of Totalitarianism and The Human Condition. Her magazine articles brought her a popular audience and her New Yorker report on the Eichmann trial coined the phrase ' banality of evil ' and made her the centre of enduring controversy. In this radio portrait Alasdair Clayre traces the course of her life and thought with the help of BERNARD CRICK , HANS JONAS , ALFRED KAZIN , JEROME KOHN , MARY MCCARTHY , ANTHONY QUINTON , MRS SALO BARON and ELIZABETH YOUNG-BRUEHL.
Producer PHILIP FRENCH followed by an interlude