The Human Condition (Vita Activa)

Do everyday labor, planning and production activities, science and technology, and even, to some extent, artistic creativity serve as an escape from political action, from the open public world? Hannah Arendt tends to answer this question affirmatively. She is concerned about the state of modern society, locked in the businesslike routine of production and consumption. The historical potential of free personal action remains unclaimed. The book offers a broad, systematic analysis of the fundamental needs and conditions of human existence, the fundamental types of human activity, and, above all, the turn in human history associated with the shift in focus to science and humanity's foray into space. This book is a major work on political theory, laying the foundations of this discipline in the 20th century. It is one of the rare philosophical works of modern times capable of captivating any educated reader.