Poor in understanding human condition(s)

While she is brilliant in depicting totalitarian features of society, Hannah does not understand the basis of human action: the exchange of values. She despises exchange as something that destroys human nature. This is such a mistake that I should have rated this book with 1 star if there were not to find some interesting historical references.

5 people found this helpful

Not translating quotes, seriously?

The review is of the narration and book preparation for audio, not Hannah Arendt’s text. I very rarely have a dislike for narrations, but the tone of this narration is somehow annoying, didactic, and the strangest of accents are put on random words in phrases, as if a dramatic Victorian novel is being read.
In a move of unabashed elitism, it is also assumed that reader speaks fluent French and German, so there’s no need to translate at length quotes. I’m going to finish it, but I wouldn’t recommend this narration.

5 people found this helpful

Beautiful eye opener.

This book has allowed me to connect the lines of all of my teachings so far. Although it’s a bit “out there” in parts this book it has given me some deep and meaningful insights into codependency that other books on the topic failed to provide.

5 people found this helpful

one of the greats

A+ narration

i grasped this book better as an audiobook than reading it (the paperback edition is formatted weird imo)

the book is uncategorizable. just brilliant. an insight on every page. very clarifying. this is the hannah arendt i love. she's directly engaging with the history of european philosophy. she somehow simultaneously embraces and rejects that whole tradition

very weird book.

4 people found this helpful

design reference

To me, as a designer, this book needs to be part of theory in the field of design studies. it helps understanding the ways in which human beings alter the world and the planet.

3 people found this helpful

Unfathomable, Totally Unfathomable

Hannah Arendt is a brilliant Political Scientist. She is to PS, as Einstein is to Cosmic Understanding. In the Human Condition (Second Edition), Arendt explains just how human functionality results in our governance systems, as well as how those frailties encumber or enhance those propagations. There is a problem though. She writes in the same difficult-to-understand style as my prior sentence containing the word frailties. Her way of writing is awful. Her verbiage is too intense and complicated, her sentences are laden with side thoughts, and she is poor at keeping her subject matter as the issue in her communication. Even if you give her writing full concentration you likely will find her brilliance non-discernable.

Terrible hyper-expressive reading

The reading lady seemed like she doesn’t know what she’s reading half the time, a lot of unnecessarily dramatic high pitched emphases. I sped up the audio to try and even those out. It was very hard to follow her voice knowing how Hanna Arendt actually sounds like. This performance was Unnecessarily expressive and emotive. This beautiful philosophical text by Hanna Arendt simply needed a calm and analytic voice. You could’ve easily found someone who sounds like Hanna Arendt, if you looked amongst philosophy students. They’d probably be happy to read it for audible. I will avoid any book by this performer, unless it’s some silly romance novel for entertainment.

Amazing

Hannah Arndt is truly one of the most brilliant philosophers of the 20th century. The Human Condition was a work used in a course I took as a philosophy major many years ago, but worthy of a college course in itself. I will have to revisit it a third time to plumb further depths.