Few thinkers have addressed the political horrors and complex ethical issues of the 20th century with the insight and intellectual honesty of Hannah Arendt. She did not give up trying to understand the significance of the historical, political, and cultural events of the era. "Experiences of Understanding" contains articles by Arendt in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. These are discussed by S.. Augustine, Kierkegaard, existentialism, and Kafka; Nazism, questions of responsibility and guilt, the place of religion in the modern world, and the nature of totalitarianism The works collected in this book show Arendt's emergence as a thinker and show why her ideas and judgments are as provocative and important today as when they were first expressed by her.