It's a bit glib to dismiss a long and well-researched book in a single throwaway sentence. Hsve you taken the trouble to read it? I found it extremely convincing. Arendt sat through the entire trial and examined reams of historical documents.
The claim made in this new book is that Eichmann was far more intelligent than he let on, and that he essentially fooled everyone by telling them what they wanted to hear. Evidence is provided in the form of his writings about the moral philosophy of Kant, and previously-mislabeled transcripts from postwar interviews conducted in Argentina by a fellow member of a sort of Nazi book club they were running. Basically all this evidence was out there, it was just misclassified or mislabeled and so no one had connected the dots.
Well, I did link to a review of another long and well-researched book that picks apart Arendt's portrayal. Unless the referred documents are complete fabrications I can't see how Arendt's thesis holds water anymore.
I encourage others to read that review of Bettina Stangneth's "Eichmann Before Jerusalem". Again: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/03/books/book-portrays-eichma.... It does contradict Arendt's thesis, and does so with comprehensive grounding in source material that had been unexamined.
Arendt's thesis is that Eichmann was banal -- that is so lacking in originality and boring -- in his evil, that he was an unthinking functionary just following orders. This is not what Eichmann's memoirs and interviews from his time in Argentina (after World War II, before Jerusalem) convey. He contemplated and dismissed the philosophy of Kant. He participated in weekly book clubs and laid groundwork for Holocaust deniers. He spoke of his genocidal role as a "duty to our blood".
This is not the talk of a man who was just following orders.
