Stranger from Abroad: Hannah Arendt, Martin Heidegger, Friendship and Forgiveness [Hardcover]

Shaking up the content and method by which generations of students had studied Western philosophy, Martin Heidegger sought to ennoble mans existence in relation to death. Yet in a time of crisis, he sought personal advancement, becoming the most prominent German intellectual to join the Nazis.Two titans of twentieth-century thought: their lives, loves, ideas, and politics. Starred Review. Readers welcoming diverse perspectives will benefit from this inquiry into a relationship uniquely freighted with historical meaning. [A] fascinating snapshot of the divergent ways two towering intellects responded to the 20th century's darkest moments. The author is an advocate for both Heidegger and Arendtthough he is far harder on the former, calling the philosopher's actions 'shameful'and he provides a lengthy defense of Arendt's most controversial work, Heideggers personal and political opportunism, and Arendts struggles to be what she would consider fair in her dealings with all are made accessible to popular readers in this version of their joint and separate lives. Few relationships are more mysterious than that between Arendt and Heidegger. More interesting than their brief love affair when she was his young student is the attitude she took toward him in her maturity. Despite his Nazi affiliation, she refused to write him out of her life and out of intellectual history. This is a humane, judicious, and utterly absorbing account of Heidegger's role in Arendt's life and thought. An excellent introduction to the story of one of the most dramatic and fascinating relationships of the twentieth century. A useful counterpoint to the recent debates about Heidegger's relationship to Nazi ideology, and whether [Arendt's] admiration for Heidegger informed her thinking about the Holocaust and her formulation of the 'banality of evil.' It's one thing to study the ideological debates that so traumatized twentieth century Europe, and quite another to explore them on a painfulllãI