The Concept of the Political: Expanded Edition

by Carl Schmitt, George Schwab (Translator), Tracy B. Strong (Foreword by), Leo Strauss (Commentaries by)

Overview

In this, his most influential work, legal theorist and political philosopher Carl Schmitt argues that liberalism’s basis in individual rights cannot provide a reasonable justification for sacrificing oneself for the state—a critique as cogent today as when it first appeared. George Schwab’s introduction to his translation of the 1932 German edition highlights Schmitt’s intellectual journey through the turbulent period of German history leading to the Hitlerian one-party state. In addition to analysis by Leo Strauss and a foreword by Tracy B. Strong placing Schmitt’s work into contemporary context, this expanded edition also includes a translation of Schmitt’s 1929 lecture “The Age of Neutralizations and Depoliticizations,” which the author himself added to the 1932 edition of the book. An essential update on a modern classic, The Concept of the Political, Expanded Edition belongs on the bookshelf of anyone interested in political theory or philosophy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226738925
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	05/15/2007
Edition description:	Enlarged
Pages:	162
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Carl Schmitt (1888–1985) was a legal theorist, political philosopher, and the author of Legality and Legitimacy, On the Three Types of Juristic Thought, Political Romanticism, Nomos of the Earth, Roman Catholicism and Political Form, Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy, and The Concept of the Political, the last available from the University of Chicago Press.


Carl Schmitt (1888–1985) was a legal theorist, political philosopher, and the author of Legality and Legitimacy, On the Three Types of Juristic Thought, Political Romanticism, Nomos of the Earth, Roman Catholicism and Political Form, Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy, and The Concept of the Political, the last available from the University of Chicago Press.

Table of Contents

Foreword: Dimensions of the New Debate around Carl Schmitt, by Tracy B. Strong
Translator’s Note to the 1996 Edition and Acknowledgments
Introduction, by George Schwab
Translator’s Note to the 1976 Edition
The Concept of the Political, by Carl Schmitt
“The Age of Neutralizations and Depoliticizations” (1929), by Carl Schmitt
Notes on Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, by Leo Strauss
Index of Names

Editorial Reviews

The best introduction to Schmitt’s thought.”

New York Review of Books - Mark Lilla

"Arguably Schmitt’s most influential work was The Concept of the Political, a short essay with a lasting legacy, recognised as one of the most important tracts of modern political thought."

New Statesman - Samuel Earle

"This foundational work is now available in an 'expanded edition' from University of Chicago Press. . . . Minor disagreements over terms fade . . . in light of the superb job Schwab has done rendering Schmitt's long, multi-clausal German sentences into concise, pellucid English."

HNet - Robert D. Rachlin

Contains much of what is fundamental in Schmitt’s understanding of the political nature of man and the state, including his contentious definition of the political as the distinction between friend and enemy. . . . Its scholarship is unquestionable.”

Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory - Joseph W. Bendersky

“Contains much of what is fundamental in Schmitt’s understanding of the political nature of man and the state, including his contentious definition of the political as the distinction between friend and enemy. . . . Its scholarship is unquestionable.”

— Joseph W. Bendersky

Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory

A sociological study of American drinking patterns reviewing current scholarly literature and providing commentary and observation on alcohol use and its public control. Gusfield presents research on alcohol studies, discussing the related social problems and cultural authority embedded in public drinking, and studying drinking as a leisure and social activity which points to the moral and political conflicts surrounding alcohol use particularly in relation to drinking and driving. Paper edition (unseen), $19.95. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews