Men in Dark Times was published by Harcourt, Brace & World in 1968, and it collects Arendt’s biographical essays — portraits of people who lived through the political catastrophes of the twentieth century and who, in their different ways, cast light into the darkness.
The subjects are diverse: Rosa Luxemburg (the revolutionary who insisted on political freedom even within Marxism), Karl Jaspers (the philosopher who remained in Nazi Germany and preserved his integrity), Walter Benjamin (the literary critic destroyed by the catastrophe he had spent his life trying to understand), Isak Dinesen (the storyteller who transmuted suffering into art), Hermann Broch (the novelist who tried to create an ethics of fiction), and Pope John XXIII (who opened the windows of an institution devoted to immutability). Each essay is a portrait of a specific individual, but together they constitute an argument about the relationship between character and catastrophe.
Arendt’s title comes from Brecht: “In the dark times / Will there also be singing? / Yes, there will also be singing. / About the dark times.” The “light” that her subjects provide is not optimism or comfort but illumination — the willingness to look at reality clearly and to tell the truth about what they see, even when the truth is terrible. This, Arendt argues, is what distinguishes genuine thinkers from propagandists and conformists: not their conclusions but their commitment to truthfulness.
Collecting Men in Dark Times
First edition (Harcourt, Brace & World, New York, 1968): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition in dust jacket: $50–$150
- Without jacket: $15–$30
- Paperback editions: $8–$15