Politics on Trial: Eichmann in Jerusalem
Dec 10, 2025•1 hr 5 min•Season 13Ep. 245
Listen to this episode in Metacast mobile app
Don't just listen to podcasts. Learn from them with transcripts, summaries, and chapters for every episode. Skim, search, and bookmark insights. Learn more
Episode description
Today’s episode is about a momentous trial and the incendiary book that followed: the trial was of Adolf Eichmann, convicted by an Israeli court in 1961 of orchestrating the Holocaust, and the book was Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), which questioned the grounds on which he was prosecuted. What did Arendt mean by ‘the banality of evil’? Why was she convinced that the case against Eichmann was badly misjudged? Was the trial really intended to serve as a history lesson? And if it was, what was it designed to teach?
Next time in Politics on Trial: Nelson Mandela vs Apartheid
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
For the best experience, listen in Metacast app for iOS or Android