In the early 1950s, Hannah Arendt had gathered a substantial amount of material - lectures, treatises, speeches, and diary entries - for two books she planned to publish: "Totalitarian Elements in Marxism" and "Introduction to Politics." The project did not come to fruition, but that material became the core for this specific collection of texts.

"The Promise of Politics" invites the reader on a timeless journey into the tradition of political thought: its origins and historical evolution, the traditional rupture between thought and action, our crises and prejudices against politics, and the essence of political experience. From Socrates and Plato to Montesquieu, Hegel, and Marx, the eminent German-Jewish philosopher examines what politics is, clarifying its fundamental element: human plurality, the pluralistic nature of human beings, and their critical ability as the starting point for political action and freedom.

Does politics still have any meaning in a world that has experienced the horrors of totalitarian regimes and weapons of mass destruction? Arendt wonders. It is not coincidental that in the epilogue of this book, she metaphorically describes a solitary world with life-giving oases of philosophy and art, love and friendship.