Although Totalitarianism has been perhaps the most widely read of Hannah Arendt's books (while Eichmann in Jerusalem is certainly the most notorious) it is The Human Condition that has attracted most scholarly attention. Generally regarded as her magnum opus, it has been the subject of a good deal of analysis and criticism. It would be neither appropriate nor feasible to attempt a full-scale commentary on the book here. Instead, what I shall try to do in this chapter is to situate it within the context of Arendt's work, and in particular to relate it to the thought trains set off by her encounter with totalitarianism. For the reason why we have spent so long tracing her path from The Origins of Totalitarianism to The Human Condition is that only within that context can one properly understand the later book. Following Arendt's thought trains will lead us to take a fresh look at a number of areas, of which the most interesting will perhaps be her theory of action.

Some readers may be sceptical about this approach, and dubious in particular about the hermeneutic principles involved in making use of material Arendt chose not to publish in order to interpret what she did explicitly offer to the world. Such a reader might object that where a writer publishes a systematic work of political philosophy, we must suppose that the work as published represents her definitive position and should be taken as it stands.