Support H-Net | Buy Books Here | Help Support the NBN and NBN en Español on Patreon | Visit New Books Network en Español!
- African Studies
- African American Studies
- American Politics
- American Studies
- American South
- American West
- Asian American Studies
- Australian and New Zealand Studies
- British Studies
- Canadian Studies
- Caribbean Studies
- Central Asian Studies
- Chinese Studies
- East Asian Studies
- Eastern European Studies
- European Politics
- French Studies
- German Studies
- Iberian Studies
- India Studies
- Indian Ocean World
- Iranian Studies
- Irish Studies
- Israel Studies
- Italian Studies
- Japanese Studies
- Korean Studies
- Latino Studies
- Latin American Studies
- Mexican Studies
- Middle Eastern Studies
- Native American Studies
- Pacific Studies
- Polish Studies
- Russian and Eurasian Studies
- Southeast Asian Studies
- South Asian Studies
- Turkish Studies
- Ukrainian Studies
- Western European Studies
- World Affairs
- Animal Studies
- Anthropology
- Archaeology
- Business, Management, and Marketing
- Media
- Critical Theory
- Disability Studies
- Drugs, Addiction and Recovery
- Education
- Economics
- Finance
- Geography
- Gender Studies
- Genocide Studies
- Higher Education
- Human Rights
- Journalism
- Language
- Law
- LGBTQ+ Studies
- National Security
- Philanthropy
- Philosophy
- Policing, Incarceration, and Reform
- Political Science
- Politics & Polemics
- Public Policy
- Sex, Sexuality, and Sex Work
- Sociology
- Sound Studies
- Sports
- Urban Studies
- Big Ideas
- Celebration Studies
- Co-Authored
- Cover Story
- Historical Materialism
- History Ex Silo
- Interpretive Political and Social Science
- Invested Investor
- Landscape Architecture
- Late Antiquity
- Mormonism
- NBN Book of the Day
- NBN Seminar
- Postscript: Conversations on Politics and Political Science
- Practical History
- Preparing for Life After Grad School
- Psychology and Climate Change
- Syriac Studies
- The Chair: In The Room at the Fed
- New Books with Miranda Melcher
Dec 3, 2012
Political Evil
What It Is and How to Combat It
Summary
Somewhere Hannah Arendt is smiling. In the pages of the 1945 Partisan Review Arendt declared, "The problem of evil will be the fundamental question of postwar intellectual life in Europe." In the short-term, Arendt couldn't have been more wrong. With Marxists and postmodernists rejecting the very idea of "evil," academics and intellectuals (yes, there is a difference between the two) rarely investigated the "problem of evil."
The international security issues of the post-Cold War era, however, have brought Arendt's proposition to the fore. From the Balkans and Rwanda to Osama bin Laden, American policymakers have confronted issues of ethnic cleansing, genocide, and mass terror that have forced intellectuals to reconsider "evil." One of our culture's leading public intellectuals, Alan Wolfe, has penned a marvelous work on the issue,Political Evil: What It Is and How to Combat It (Vintage, 2012)). In this readable and timely book, Wolfe defines political evil, offers some definitional accuracy, and urges readers to become serious about the issue. If you are at all interested in the politics of foreign policy and crafting a intellectual framework for a serious strategy go listen to this interview and go buy and read this book.
