SOURCE: "Rosa Luxemburg: 1871-1919," in Men In Dark Times, Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1968, pp. 33-56.

A German-born American political philosopher and literary essayist, Arendt was one of the most important political thinkers of the twentieth century. Perceiving the political thinker as a "truth-teller" who counters the lies of politicians, Arendt sought through her writings to expand the realm of human freedom and resist tyranny. In the following essay, which originally appeared in The New York Review of Books in 1966, she discusses the value of J. P. Nettl's biography of Luxemburg and the reception of her writings before and after her death.

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The definitive biography, English-style, is among the most admirable genres of historiography. Lengthy, thoroughly documented, heavily annotated, and generously splashed with quotations, it usually comes in two large volumes and tells more, and more vividly, about the historical period in question than all but the most outstanding...