SOURCE: "At Home in This Century," in New York Review of Books, Vol. 42, No. 6, April 6, 1995, pp. 9-14.

In the review below, Judt finds that both Essays in Understanding and Between Friends provide a better understanding of Arendt herself, demonstrating that "it becomes a little easier to see just what holds together the various parts of her oeuvre and why they provoke such diverse and powerful responses."

Hannah Arendt died twenty years ago, leaving a curious and divided legacy. To some she represented the worst of "Continental" philosophizing: metaphysical musings upon modernity and its ills unconstrained by any institutional or intellectual discipline and often cavalierly unconcerned with empirical confirmation. They note her weakness for a phrase or an aperçu, often at the expense of accuracy. For such critics her insights into the woes of the century are at best derivative, at worst plain wrong. Others, including the many...