Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I first read this book 20+ years ago in my senior year of college, in a political theory seminar on Arendt, and have re-read it from time to time ever since. The seminar professor offered a keg of beer to anyone who could find the phrase "banality of evil" in the text of the book (NOT the cover, in Arendt's text). No one won the keg because Arendt NEVER USES the phrase banality of evil anywhere in the book, and she was NOT saying evil is banal. What she was trying to drive at is that you don't need a raver like Hitler, or an obvious monster with long fangs, to do evil -- that ordinary people, the kind you live next door to or pass on the street every day without a second thought -- can do tremendous evil. it's a conclusion that I agree with in my brain but still grapple with emotionally. I'm also grateful to her because this book is the first place where she recounted the story of the Danish Jews, who were protected by just about the entire population of Denmark when the Nazis tried to round them up.