October 2025

Arendt's oeuvre has inspired many to stand in solidarity against authoritarianism, racial or gender-based violence, climate change, and right-wing populism. Her highly acclaimed work is a common point of reference for reflecting on political challenges today. But what if a careful analysis of solidarity in her writing reveals a darker side to this intellectual legacy What if solidarity, as she conceives of it, was not oriented toward equality, freedom, or justice for all, but creates a barrier to intersectional coalition building?

David D. Kim’s newly published book Arendt's Solidarity: Anti-Semitism and Racism in the Atlantic World (Stanford University Press, 2024) examines Arendt's lifelong struggle with ‘solidarity’—a deceptively straightforward, yet complex concept. Following the arc of her forced migration across the Atlantic, Kim looks at this conceptual conundrum in relation to every major concern of hers: Christian neighborly love, friendship, Jewish assimilation, Zionism, National Socialism, the American republic, Black Power, revolution, violence, and the human world. In dialogue with dissenting voices such as Thomas Mann, Gershom Scholem, Jean-Paul Sartre, James Baldwin, among others, and drawing from Arendt's publications, unpublished documents, private letters, and other archival material, Kim offers a full-scale reinterpretation of her oeuvre.