Hannah Arendt

Arendt was a german political theorist who coined the term "banality of evil" in her book on the Adolph Eichmann's trial, "Eichmann in Jerusalem." She claimed that Eichman wasn't particularly anti-semetic or devilish, just rather wanted to advance his career. Arendt herself had fled Germany, and then France, from the Nazis; she eventually landed in America teaching at Princton.