On Violence

From Hannah Arendt, the author of The Origins of Totalitarianism , her influential essay examining the relationship between violence, power, war and politics 'Violence can destroy power; it is utterly incapable of creating it' Why has violence played such a significant role in human history? Written in 1970, with the Holocaust and Hiroshima still fresh in recent memory, war in Vietnam raging and the streets of Europe and America exploding into student protest, Hannah Arendt's seminal work dissects violence in the twentieth century: its nature and causes, its relationship with politics and war, its role in the modern age. Arendt warns against the glamorization of violence by revolutionary causes, and argues that true, lasting power can never grow 'out of the barrel of a gun'. 'Incisive, deeply probing, written with clarity and grace, it provides an ideal framework for understanding the turbulence of our times' The Nation With an introduction by Arendt expert, Lyndsey Stonebridge, Professor of Humanities and Human Rights at the University of Birmingham.

From Hannah Arendt, the author of The Origins of Totalitarianism , her influential essay examining the relationship between violence, power, war and politics 'Violence can destroy power; it is utterly incapable of creating it' Why has violence played such a significant role in human history? Written in 1970, with the Holocaust and Hiroshima still fresh in recent memory, war in Vietnam raging and the streets of Europe and America exploding into student protest, Hannah Arendt's seminal work dissects violence in the twentieth century: its nature and causes, its relationship with politics and war, its role in the modern age. Arendt warns against the glamorization of violence by revolutionary causes, and argues that true, lasting power can never grow 'out of the barrel of a gun'. 'Incisive, deeply probing, written with clarity and grace, it provides an ideal framework for understanding the turbulence of our times' The Nation With an introduction by Arendt expert, Lyndsey Stonebridge, Professor of Humanities and Human Rights at the University of Birmingham.

Political theorist, philosopher, and feminist thinker Hannah Arendt's On Violence is an analysis of the nature, causes, and significance of violence in the second half of the twentieth century. The public revulsion against violence and nonviolent philosophies continues to diminish in the twenty-first century. In this classic and still all too resonant work, Hannah Arendt puts her theories about violence into historical perspective, examining the relationships between war and politics, violence and power. Questioning the nature of violent behavior, she reveals the causes of its many manifestations, and ulitmately argues against Mao Zedong's dictum "power grows out of the barrel of a gun," proposing instead that "power and violence are opposites; where one rules absolutely, the other is absent."&#8220Incisive, deeply probing, written with clarity and grace, it provides an ideal framework for understanding the turbulence of our times."-The Nation

Political theorist, philosopher, and feminist thinker Hannah Arendt's On Violence is an analysis of the nature, causes, and significance of violence in the second half of the twentieth century. The public revulsion against violence and nonviolent philosophies continues to diminish in the twenty-first century. In this classic and still all too resonant work, Hannah Arendt puts her theories about violence into historical perspective, examining the relationships between war and politics, violence and power. Questioning the nature of violent behavior, she reveals the causes of its many manifestations, and ulitmately argues against Mao Zedong's dictum "power grows out of the barrel of a gun," proposing instead that "power and violence are opposites; where one rules absolutely, the other is absent."&#8220Incisive, deeply probing, written with clarity and grace, it provides an ideal framework for understanding the turbulence of our times."-The Nation