Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition (1958) is a remarkably prophetic book. At its heart is an analysis of the relationship between labour, work and action, set against a time of rapid technological change. Arendt worried about the power of computers, believed in the capacity of people to reinvent themselves through politics and despaired of the influence of Thomas Hobbes. Was she right?

Recommended version to purchase: 

• https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/H/bo29137972.html

Going Deeper:

• James Miller in the LRB on Hannah Arendt
• Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Hannah Arendt, Eichman in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil
• In Our Time on Hannah Arendt
• Matthew Beard for the Guardian, ‘With Robots, is a life without work one we’d want to live?’ 

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