We Are Free to Change the World

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

This bold new take on the life and ideas of political philosopher Hannah Arendt explores her lessons for living in an age of uncertainty

The violent unease of today's world would have been all too familiar to Hannah Arendt. Tyranny, occupation, disenchantment, post-truth politics, conspiracy theories, racism, mass migration, the banality of evil: she had lived through them all.

Born in the first decade of the last century, Arendt escaped fascist Europe to make a new life for herself in America, where she became one of the world's most influential - and controversial - public intellectuals. She wrote about power and terror, exile and love, and above all about freedom. Questioning - thinking - was her first defence against tyranny. In place of the forces of darkness and insanity, she pitched a politics of plurality, spontaneity and defiance. Loving the world, Arendt taught, meant finding the courage to protect it.

Written with passion and authority, Lyndsey Stonebridge's We Are Free to Change the World illuminates Arendt's life and work and its urgent dialogue with our troubled present. It is a call for each of us to think our way, as Hannah Arendt did-unflinchingly, lovingly, and defiantly-through our own unpredictable times.

'Exhilarating, brilliant and utterly original' PHILIPPE SANDS
'Witty, moving and inspiring. An extraordinary book' SARAH CHURCHWELL

©2024 Lyndsey Stonebridge (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Critics Review

  • An exhilarating, brilliant and utterly original read; an iconic 20th century figure brought to life in all her facets, splendours and complexities

    Philippe Sands, author of East West Street

  • Expertly analysed and beautifully written, Stonebridge on Arendt is a rare gem, combining complex history and stark contemporary resonance with sparks of hope that we really are free to change the world

    Baroness Shami Chakrabarti, author of On Liberty

  • Both a warmly engaging intellectual biography and a tract for the times, this is a needful reminder of what political thinking looks like when it is humane, literate and radical all at once

    Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury

  • A passionate, original defence of the politics of thinking, and especially of women thinking in public, We Are Free to Change the World is witty, moving and inspiring, at once fiercely angry and a work of deep moral wisdom

    Sarah Churchwell, author of Behold, America

  • We Are Free to Change the World lightens both the darkness of the times we live in and the burdens we carry on our shoulders. Both serious and joyful, readers of this wonderful book will think and laugh

    Jerome Kohn, Trustee, Hannah Arendt Blücher Literary Trust

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