Thread by @Samantharhill

People often ask me where they should start with Hannah Arendt's work. These are my most common suggestions.

For those who want a taste before committing to the longer works:

Politics: Crises
Theory: Between Past & Future
A sense of Arendt: Men in Dark Times
Overview: Thinking

For people who want to dive into Hannah Arendt's work headfirst:

Origins was her 1st major work, about the constellation of elements that crystallized into Totalitarianism. 1951

The Human Condition was her 2nd major work, about spaces of freedom and the life of action. 1958

For those who want to jump straight to what makes Hannah Arendt a controversial thinker:

Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil.
On Revolution

(Both published in 1963!)

I'd also add "Reflections on Little Rock" 1959.

For those who want a taste of Hannah Arendt's major essays, her work in exile, and the evolution of her thinking over time:

Responsibility and Judgment
Essays in Understanding

For those who want to read Hannah Arendt's most philosophical writing, her final work: The Life of the Mind.

A follow up to the Eichmann controversy, sequel to The Human Condition, and dismantling of metaphysics.

For those who want a taste of early Hannah Arendt:

Love and Saint Augustine & Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewish Woman.

For those who want to focus on her Jewish work and writings:

The Jewish Writings, compiled by Jerome Kohn and Richard Bernstein's Hannah Arendt and the Jewish Question.

And finally, for those interested in Hannah Arendt's friendships, some of her correspondence. (There's much more available in German at this point. I'd also add Between Four Walls which is out of print, sadly.)