In 2005, he published a biography of SS-"Obersturmbannführer" Adolf Eichmann; titled "Eichmann: His Life and Crimes", it featured hitherto unused primary source material. The book has gained attention in particular for its evaluation of Hannah Arendt's account of Eichmann's arrest, trial and sentence. In a review for "The Daily Telegraph", British historian Ian Kershaw wrote that "a central purpose of Cesarani's penetrating and compelling study is to show how wrong Arendt's influential interpretation of Eichmann was, and how misleading the phrase 'banality of evil' has proved." A key charge of Cesarani was that Arendt's account of Eichmann's trial was hindered by prejudice towards the Eastern European Jewish background of the prosecutor, Gideon Hausner.