Daniel Maier-Katkin is a professor of criminology and criminal justice and a Fellow of the Center for the Advancement of Human Rights at Florida State University. He lives in Tallahassee, Florida.
"Starred Review. Readers welcoming diverse perspectives will
benefit from this inquiry into a relationship uniquely freighted
with historical meaning."
*Booklist*
"[A] fascinating snapshot of the divergent ways two towering
intellects responded to the 20th century's darkest moments."
*Publishers Weekly*
"The author is an advocate for both Heidegger and Arendt—though he
is far harder on the former, calling the philosopher's actions
'shameful'—and he provides a lengthy defense of Arendt's most
controversial work, Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), and its analysis
of what she called 'the banality of evil,' a phrase that continues
to foment fiery debate nearly a half-century later."
*Kirkus Reviews*
"Heidegger’s personal and political opportunism, and Arendt’s
struggles to be what she would consider fair in her dealings with
all are made accessible to popular readers in this version of their
joint and separate lives."
*Library Journal*
"Few relationships are more mysterious than that between Arendt and
Heidegger. More interesting than their brief love affair when she
was his young student is the attitude she took toward him in her
maturity. Despite his Nazi affiliation, she refused to write him
out of her life and out of intellectual history. This is a humane,
judicious, and utterly absorbing account of Heidegger's role in
Arendt's life and thought."
*Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of Betraying Spinoza*
"An excellent introduction to the story of one of the most dramatic
and fascinating relationships of the twentieth century."
*Vivian Gornick, author of The Men in my Life*
"A useful counterpoint to the recent debates about Heidegger's
relationship to Nazi ideology, and whether [Arendt's] admiration
for Heidegger informed her thinking about the Holocaust and her
formulation of the 'banality of evil.'"
*Ronald Florence, author of Emissary of the Doomed*
"It's one thing to study the ideological debates that so
traumatized twentieth century Europe, and quite another to explore
them on a painfully human scale. Through the interlocking lives of
two enormously influential individuals, Maier-Katkin's book
illuminates the intellectual and moral struggles of the era. The
book is at once impressive in its breadth of historical vision, and
richly textured in its psychological portraits."
*Philip Jenkins, author of Jesus Wars*
"Dan Maier-Katkin has written a uniquely fascinating book that
manages to capture the passions and intellectual complexity of a
relationship but also the complexity of the world and events
surrounding that relationship. I was profoundly moved by the book.
It is rare that an author can care so intensely about a subject and
yet have enough distance to write about it so well. I loved the
book and can't recommend it highly enough."
*Jeff VanderMeer, author of of Booklife*
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