We are free to change the world

The violent unease of today's world would have been familiar to Hannah Arendt. Tyranny, occupation, disenchantment, post-truth politics, conspiracy theories, racism, mass migration: She lived through them all. Born in the first decade of the last century, she escaped fascist Europe to make a new life for herself in America, where she became one of its most influential - and controversial - public intellectuals. She wrote about power and terror, exile and love, and above all, about freedom. Questioning - thinking - was her first defense against tyranny. She advocated a politics of action and plurality, courage and, when necessary, disobedience. This book is about the Arendt we need for the 21st century. It tells us how and why Arendt came to think the way she did, and how to think when our own politics goes off the rails.