On Revolution

De: Hannah Arendt

Narrado por: Tavia Gilbert

Hannah Arendt's penetrating observations on the modern world, based on a profound knowledge of the past, have been fundamental to our understanding of our political landscape. On Revolution is her classic exploration of a phenomenon that has reshaped the globe. From the 18th-century rebellions in America and France to the explosive changes of the 20th century, Arendt traces the changing face of revolution and its relationship to war while underscoring the crucial role such events will play in the future. Illuminating and prescient, this timeless work will fascinate anyone who seeks to decipher the forces that shape our tumultuous age.

©2017 Hannah Arendt (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Terrible audio

The audio seems extremely processed, making the reader sound almost robotic. Hard to listen to - it’s like the reader never takes a breath.

must read

this book is a must read for anyone who wants a revolution. Ardent goes over the accomplishments, differences, and pitfalls of revolutions throughout history. she reflects on how bias and a lack of historical context or "forgetting" leads to the cyclical patterns well observed that define the relationship between violence, power, revolution, and dictatorships.

Insightful Analysis of Differing Revolutions

This is a fascinating analysis of the differences between the American and French Revolutions and how those differences led to very different results. Arendt also analyzes how circumstances that appeared in the French, but not the American, Revolution played out in subsequent revolutions, particularly the Russian Revolution.

Arendt identifies two aspects of successful revolutions: (1) liberation, the violent overthrow of the old order, and (2) freedom, the creation of a new order, particularly through constitution making. Unlike historians such as James Beard, she does not see the American Constitution as a conservative abandonment of the Revolution, but rather its successful conclusion. She faults the French, and later the Russian, Revolutions for never getting past the violence stage. As a result, they never successfully established freedom and eventually fell victim to despotism.

She credits the American success in creating a new order to two main influences. The first was the colonial experience with self-government, particularly because most of the local institutions had been created de novo by the colonists themselves. This experience gave Americans the recognition of the need for forms of government and also the confidence with their ability to create such forms. The French, and later the Russians, coming out of absolutism, had neither. In America, society was viewed as good, again mostly because it was self-created, and as a way to curb antisocial instincts. In France, however, society, which had been composed of the aristocracy, was viewed as corrupting the natural virtue of man. The Americans therefore valued social organizations, while the French distrusted them.

Because the Americans had created their own local governments, the colonists did not destroy such institutions in their overthrow of the old order and could use those governments to create new structures to replace those they had destroyed. The French, when they overthrew the all-encompassing ancien regime, had nothing left upon which, or with which, to build a new order, for the Estates General was part of the old order.

The second main influence was the relative lack of economic inequality among American whites. Arendt recognizes that there was significant economic inequality in America, but the colonists did not include slaves within their revolution, while the sans culottes seized the initiative in France. The economic inequality was so great in France that social issues quickly took precedence over the political issue. Arendt argues that the intractability of the social issues caused the French to look for culprits to blame for the lack of progress. The urgency of the social issues themselves and the necessity to find culprits, in effect traitors to the revolution, led to a constant state of revolution, in which the search for new enemies led to the Reign of Terror, as the revolution devoured its own. Necessity trumped freedom.

Arendt distinguishes between power and law. In both the American and French Revolutions, power was recognized to lie with the people, but Americans created the federal and state constitutions as sources of law. In fact, Americans began creating their own state governments even before the Declaration of Independence, as part and parcel of the Revolution. In France, without new forms of government, the people were also the source of the law, and the law could change frequently as the moods of the people changed.

The traditional distinction between a government of laws compared to a government of men usually contrasts democracy and authoritarianism. Arendt, however, shows that a democracy can also be a government of men and therefore highly volatile. In fact, she uses the terms democracy and republic differently than do most theorists. Most historians of the American Revolution, such as Gordon Wood, define republic as a popular government relying on the virtue of its citizens and democracy as a government balancing the self-interests of the citizens. Arendt, on the other hand, uses democracy to mean popular participation in government, such as through town meetings, and republic to mean representative government.

Arendt credits America’s success in establishing lasting forms of government with the separation of powers, creating checks and balances. She also credits our acceptance of a two-party system, although she neglects the extent to which the “spirit of party” was decried in the early Republic. From such acceptance, however, comes the recognition of the legitimacy of an opposition. She says that the lack of such legitimacy, when opposition is considered subversive, is the path to totalitarianism, a subject on which she was also an expert.

In fact, she seems to see the only flaw in the American Constitution besides slavery as the lack of recognition of direct participation in government through venues such as town meetings. She saw that such participation gives people experience with, and ownership of, the process of governance. Without it, government can become distant, which may help explain our low voter turnouts and alienation from government.

Arendt has done a masterful job comparing and contrasting the American and French Revolutions and carrying her analysis forward through the Revolutions of 1848 and the Russian Revolution. Her claims to explaining all revolutions, however, fall short. While she mentions the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the Chinese Revolution, I wish she had analyzed the 17th century Dutch wars of independence from Spain, the Latin American revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries and the Irish Revolution of the 20th century. In particular, the Haitian Revolution does not seem to fit Arendt’s model. The slaves certainly had no experience with self-government, and the social issues were extreme, but the revolution did lead to a form of constitutional self-government.

A bit dense for audio

There is allot of information in this book. It is a bit dense for audio alone. It might be advisable to buy the print version as well to help follow along.

Additionally the voice over is very fast. I used my speed control to slow it down a bit.

All in all, a decent book, I can’t comment on it too much now, as I think there was more to it than I caught on the first listen. Nonetheless, very interesting.

For Academics Only

This treatise on revolution reads like a translation of Plato or Rousseau, or even an early American document, in style, word choice, and embellishment. It’s clear the author believes this work to be a seminal philosophical document in our understanding of the subject, but as the above mentioned are largely inaccessible, this volume is similarly inaccessible to the a non-academic audience