Hannah Arendt's "Eichmann In Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil"
A partial book review by Dennis D. McDonald
I’m on Chapter 2 of this 1964 book. I’ll add more as time goes by. My thoughts so far:
I can see why many were upset about this book when it first came out. Arendt is critical of the Israeli government in its handling of this “show trial” and she uses the term “banality of evil” to describe Eichmann’s complicity. Many supporters of Israel’s founding were not ready to deal with such criticism, especially when coming from an intellectual luminary like Arendt.
Her discussion of Eichmann’s background goes into detail into how he almost haphazardly became part of the Nazi death machine even though he did not “personally” murder anyone; he was just “following the law.”
While her take on Eichmann is anything but sympathetic, she does illustrate how an ordinary, unambitious, and intellectually neutral person, while somewhat educated, was drawn into Hitler’s orbit. This tracks well with her dispassionate and detailed view of how totalitarianism takes hold and spreads.
It’s this latter view of the “banality of evil” that I find so disturbing about this book in relation to what is happening in the US now.
Review copyright (c) 2026 by Dennis D. McDonald
