On Revolution (Hannah Arendt)

Hannah Arendt's semi-worthwhile thoughts on revolution, mostly superseded or proven wrong in the fifty years since, and written in an opaque and annoying style. (This review was first published September 13, 2018.)

The written version of this review can be found here:

https://theworthyhouse.com/2018/09/13/book-review-revolution-hannah-arendt/

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This and all Worthy House narrations are offered with accurate closed captions (not auto-generated).

"This is a book that rewards patience. The problem is, I am not a patient man, nor do I think that the reward here would be commensurate with the effort. Thus, I spent enough time, which was quite a bit, to grasp maybe half of this book. I think the rest escaped me. That’s partially my fault—but it’s also the author’s fault, since an elliptical writing style combined with frequent use of untranslated French phrases (even the educated don’t generally learn French anymore), along with scatterings of Greek, does not conduce to good communication. And aside from foreign languages, Arendt’s thought sometimes is so obscure as to be ethereal, an odd trait in a book that (in this edition) features a clenched fist on the cover, which is really not truth in advertising." . . .