About this item

For Persepolis and Logicomix fans, a New Yorker cartoonist's page-turning graphic biography of the fascinating Hannah Arendt, the most prominent philosopher of the twentieth century.One of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century and a hero of political thought, the largely unsung and often misunderstood Hannah Arendt is best known for her landmark 1951 book on openness in political life, The Origins of Totalitarianism, which, with its powerful and timely lessons for today, has become newly relevant. She led an extraordinary life. This was a woman who endured Nazi persecution firsthand, survived harrowing "escapes" from country to country in Europe, and befriended such luminaries as Walter Benjamin and Mary McCarthy, in a world inhabited by everyone from Marc Chagall and Marlene Dietrich to Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud. A woman who finally had to give up her unique genius for philosophy, and her love of a very compromised man--the philosopher and Nazi-sympathizer Martin Heidegger--for what she called "love of the world." Compassionate and enlightening, playful and page-turning, New Yorker cartoonist Ken Krimstein's The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt is a strikingly illustrated portrait of a complex, controversial, deeply flawed, and irrefutably courageous woman whose intelligence and "virulent truth telling" led her to breathtaking insights into the human condition, and whose experience continues to shine a light on how to live as an individual and a public citizen in troubled times.



About the Author

Ken Krimstein

I have been drawing cartoons since I figured out how to do Santa back in Mrs. Gilot's first grade class at the Alan B. Shepherd school. This passion followed me through High School, College, and when I started working at Ogilvy & Mather advertising in NYC, I made sure the old man himself wouldn't catch me as I ran from 48th Street to 43rd Street to drop off my cartoons at The New Yorker every Wednesday. After 10 years I broke in to that august publication (it was in May, actually) , but in the meantime, my rejected cartoons had started a nice cartooning career for me. After I got into The New Yorker I started to concentrate on writing as well. When I met, well, won, a meeting with my new agent, Jennifer Lyons, at the Manhattan School for Children Charity Auction, she went ga-ga over my cartoons, we settled on a theme (Oh, those wacky Jews!) and I made the proposal. My editor, Aliza, laughed. So did others. And I've created over 100 new cartoons on this theme. As for the research, alas, it has been a lifetime affliction.My cartoons have been published in the New Yorker, Punch, the Wall Street Journal, Barron's, Narrative, three of S. Gross's cartoon anthologies, King Features' "The New Breed" syndicated panel, Cosmopolitan, Science, Psychology Today, and more. I've written for the New York Observer's "New Yorker's Diary" and has published pieces on humor websites, including McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Yankee Pot Roast, and Mr. Beller's Neighborhood.I'm also an ad-guy in the wannabe Mad-Man mode.I have three kids, a wife, and a cat. Bat left. Throw left.



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