In the past year, the political thought of Hannah Arendt, the theorist of beginnings, has experienced a revival of interest. Her work examines the logics underlying the unexpected transformations from totalitarianism to revolution.

A work of striking originality, The Human Condition, is in many ways more relevant now than at its first publication in 1958. In her study of the state of modern humanity, Hannah Arendt considers humanity from the perspective of the actions it is capable of. The problems Arendt identified at that time—diminishing human agency and political freedom, the paradox that while human powers increase through technological and humanistic research, we are less able to control the consequences of our actions—still challenge us today. This new edition, published to mark the sixtieth anniversary of the original release, includes Margaret Canovan's introduction from 1998 and a new foreword by Danielle Allen.

A classic of political and social theory, The Human Condition is a work that has proven to be both timeless and constantly relevant.