Africa is a Country

‘… In one sense, … Arendt was of course correct [that the problem of evil will be the fundamental question of postwar intellectual life in Europe.]

But as so often, it took other people longer to grasp her point. It is true that in the aftermath of Hitler’s defeat and the Nuremberg trials lawyers and legislators devoted much attention to the issue of “crimes against humanity” and the definition of a new crime—”genocide”—that until then had not even had a name. But while the courts were defining the monstrous crimes that had just been committed in Europe, Europeans themselves were doing their best to forget them. And in that sense at least, Arendt was wrong, at least for a while.’

Full article in the latest New York Review of Books

Update: For a different take on Arendt’s legacy, see Gabriel Piterberg’s essay in the New Left Review.