Hannah Arendt’s first and most important philosophical work. It is concerned with the connection between forms of human politics and the historical contingency of distinctions between the public (read political) and private spheres. Characterised by a profoundly negative conception of modernity, in Arendt’s Condition bureaucratic administration emerges at the expense of active politics, and homogeneity and conformity triumph over plurality and freedom. However, what distinguishes Arendt is her unrelenting search for a new normative ground for human politics and community. Employing a hermeneutic strategy to re-articulate modern values by reconnecting them to the past, Arendt attributed particular poignancy to the metaphor of the polis, pointing towards a form of civic republicanism premised upon active and participatory citizenship.
