Cape pre-empts Stonebridge's 'bold' take on Hannah Arendt

Jonathan Cape has pre-empted Lyndsey Stonebridge's "bold reexamination of the life and ideas" of German-American philosopher Hannah Arendt.

Bea Hemming, deputy publishing director of Jonathan Cape, pre-empted UK & Commonwealth rights Thinking Like Hannah Arendt, by world-leading Arendt scholar Stonebridge, from Zoë Waldie at Rogers, Coleridge & White. Publication date is to be decided. 

"Following her refugee journey from Germany to New York, Lyndsey Stonebridge shows how Arendt trained herself to think in dark times. Where other philosophers think to retreat from the world, she thought to fight her way back into it," the synopsis reads. "Learning to think like Arendt today, Lyndsey Stonebridge argues, means turning away from dogma, political platitudes, quick-fixes and easy ideologies to counter the dangerous thoughtlessness we are witnessing all around us. Thinking Like Hannah Arendt is a book about the Hannah Arendt we need for the early 21st century."

Stonebridge said: "Hannah Arendt had a strong commitment to thinking in the public realm, particularly, as she put it famously, in dark times.  I don’t think we’ve ever needed her creativity, rigour and political passion more than we do now. It is not just what Arendt thought that is so riveting, but how she thought that seems so timely and urgent. I am thrilled to have found another enthusiastic champion in Bea Hemming. I can’t think of a better home for Arendt’s challenging and brilliant thinking than Jonathan Cape."

Hemming added: "Hannah Arendt is the thinker we need now more than ever, and Lyndsey Stonebridge is the scholar to do justice to her life and her work. Like Arendt, this will be a book that defies categorisation, blending biography, philosophy, politics, history and reportage. It is a book that speaks powerfully to our present moment, but also reinvigorates the life and times of one of the great thinkers of the twentieth century. I’m enormously excited to be publishing it at Cape."