“How is possible to learn something new from history?”

It is well-known that Hannah Arendt was a German Jewish political theorist who dedicated her life to understanding the meaning of political action in human life.[1] During the interview “Zur person” with Günther Gaus, Arendt points out that her interest in history and politics started in 1933. She took part as a political actor recompiling antisemitic statements; she was arrested and forced to emigrate from Germany the same year. However, her concerns about history preceed 1933, and can be traced particularly to 1926, where she dedicated a letter to her professor Karl Jaspers saying the following lines:” I can understand history only from the perspective which I myself occupy […] How is it possible […]to learn something new from history?[2]

Arendt kept this question in her mind throughout her life. Her reader can come up with a new concept of history differently from the traditional view, which shows us history as the science which studies the past. From my perspective, Arendt replies to this question in The Human Condition, which is where, she brings to light this perspective of beginning and its connection with the concepts of action and history. For her, every human can act bring new beginnings into the world. The capacity of action is unique between Labor and Work because it represents freedom, plurality, and history for Arendt.