by Joan B. Landes

On Revolution is a paradoxical work, at once affirmative and deeply
pessimistic. Arendt celebrates the spaces of political freedom and equal-
ity in which citizens talk and act in concert to create a common world.
She commemorates historical instances of the founding of new political
orders; and she insists that political freedom "means the right 'to be a
participator in government,' or it means nothing." ¹ Yet, her aim is not
to write history, nor to extol its results. Rather, she meditates on the
failures of modern politics and revolution's. Even Arendt's moving
invocation of the council tradition, the revolution's "lost treasurer,"
serves as an occasion for a series of nostalgic reminiscences on the

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