Foreword by Danielle Allen Introduction by Margaret Canovan Prologue I. The Human Condition 1. Vita Activa and the Human Condition 2. The Term Vita Activa 3. Eternity versus Immortality II. The Public and the Private Realm 4. Man: A Social or a Political Animal 5. The Polis and the Household 6.

The Rise of the Social 7. The Public Realm: The Common 8. The Private Realm: Property 9. The Social and the Private 10. The Location of Human Activities III. Labor 11. "The Labour of Our Body and the Work of Our Hands" 12. The Thing-Character of the World 13.

Labor and Life 14. Labor and Fertility 15. The Privacy of Property and Wealth 16. The Instruments of Work and the Division of Labor 17. A Consumers'' Society IV. Work 18. The Durability of the World 19. Reification 20.

Instrumentality and Animal Laborans 21. Instrumentality and Homo Faber 22. The Exchange Market 23. The Permanence of the World and the Work of Art V. Action 24. The Disclosure of the Agent in Speech and Action 25. The Web of Relationships and the Enacted Stories 26. The Frailty of Human Affairs 27.

The Greek Solution 28. Power and the Space of Appearance 29. Homo Faber and the Space of Appearance 30. The Labor Movement 31. The Traditional Substitution of Making for Acting 32. The Process Character of Action 33. Irreversibility and the Power to Forgive 34. Unpredictability and the Power of Promise VI.

The Vita Activa and the Modern Age 35. World Alienation 36. The Discovery of the Archimedean Point 37. Universal versus Natural Science 38. The Rise of the Cartesian Doubt 39. Introspection and the Loss of Common Sense 40. Thought and the Modern World View 41. The Reversal of Contemplation and Action 42.

The Reversal within the Vita Activa and the Victory of Homo Faber 43. The Defeat of Homo Faber and the Principle of Happiness 44. Life as the Highest Good 45. The Victory of the Animal Laborans Acknowledgments Index.