Written in the intense political and intellectual tumult of the early years of the Weimar Republic, Political Theology develops the distinctive theory of sovereignty that made Carl Schmitt one of the most significant and controversial political theorists of the twentieth century. Focusing on the relationships among political leadership, the norms of the legal order, and the state of political emergency, Schmitt argues in Political Theology that legal order ultimately rests upon the decisions of the sovereign. According to Schmitt, only the sovereign can meet the needs of an "exceptional" time and transcend legal order so that order can then be reestablished. Convinced that the state is governed by the ever-present possibility of conflict, Schmitt theorizes that the state exists only to maintain its integrity in order to ensure order and stability. Suggesting that all concepts of modern political thought are secularized theological concepts, Schmitt concludes Political Theology with a critique of liberalism and its attempt to depoliticize political thought by avoiding fundamental political decisions.

Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty

History

Carl Schmitt

World

University of Chicago Press

The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy offers a powerful criticism of the inconsistencies of representative democracy.
Described both as "the Hobbes of our age" and as "the philosophical godfather of Nazism," Carl Schmitt was a brilliant and controversial political theorist whose doctrine of political leadership and critique of liberal democratic ideals distinguish him as one of the most original contributors to modern political theory. The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy offers a powerful criticism of the inconsistencies of representative democracy. First published in 1923, it has often been viewed as an attempt to destroy parliamentarism; in fact, it was Schmitt's attempt to defend the Weimar constitution. The introduction to this new translation places the book in proper historical context and provides a useful guide to several aspects of Weimar political culture. The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy is included in the series Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought, edited by Thomas McCarthy.

Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought)

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

The MIT Press

The Crisis Of Parliamentary Democracy

MIT Press]

Writings on War

Writings on War collects three of Carl Schmitt's most important and controversial texts, here appearing in English for the first time: The Turn to the Discriminating Concept of War, The Großraum Order of International Law, and The International Crime of the War of Aggression and the Principle "Nullum crimen, nulla poena sine lege". Written between 1937 and 1945, these works articulate Schmitt's concerns throughout this period of war and crisis, addressing the major failings of the League of Nations, and presenting Schmitt's own conceptual history of these years of disaster for international jurisprudence. For Schmitt, the jurisprudence of Versailles and Nuremberg both fail to provide for a stable international system, insofar as they attempt to impose universal standards of ‘humanity' on a heterogeneous world, and treat efforts to revise the status quo as ‘criminal' acts of war. In place of these flawed systems, Schmitt argues for a new planetary order in which neither collective security organizations nor 19th century empires, but Schmittian ‘Reichs' will be the leading subject of international law. Writings on War will be essential reading for those seeking to understand the work of Carl Schmitt, the history of international law and the international system, and interwar European history. Not only do these writings offer an erudite point of entry into the dynamic and charged world of interwar European jurisprudence; they also speak with prescience to a 21st century world struggling with similar issues of global governance and international law.

Military

Polity

Politics & Social Sciences

Politics & Government

The Nomos of the Earth is Carl Schmitt s most historical and geopolitical book. It describes the origin of the Eurocentric global order, which Schmitt dates from the discovery of the New World, discusses its specific character and its contribution to civilization, analyzes the reasons for its decline at the end of the 19th century, and concludes with prospects for a new world order. It is a reasoned, yet passionate argument in defense of the European achievement, not only in creating the first truly global order of international law, but also in limiting war to conflicts among sovereign states, which in effect civilized war. In Schmitt s view, the European sovereign state was the greatest achievement of Occidental rationalism; in becoming the principal agency of secularization, the European state created the modern age. Since the problematic of a new nomos of the earth has become even more critical with the onset of the postmodern age and postmodern war, Schmitt s text is even more timely and challenging. Remarkable in Schmitt s discussion of the European epoch of world history is the role played by the New World, whose discovery initiated the rise of the first truly global world order and ultimately replaced the Old World as the center of the earth. Thus, this book has as much to do with the rise of the United States to world power as with the decline of Europe: the two phenomena paralleled each other. In the 16th century, it was England that dared to take the leap from a terrestrial to a maritime existence, and then launched the industrial revolution, in the course of which the earth was newly conceived and measured. But ultimately, the United States (the greater island, as Schmitt calls it) assumed the role of arbiter in European and world politics. According to Schmitt, America s internal conflicts between economic presence and political absence, between isolationism and interventionism, became global problems, which today continue to hamper the creation of a new world order. But however critical Schmitt is of American actions at the turn of the 19th century and after World War I, he clearly was in awe of the United States and considered it to be the only political entity capable of resolving the crisis of global order.

Nomos of the Earth in the International Law of Jus Publicum Europaeum

Foreign & International Law

Telos Press Publishing

The Nomos of the Earth is Schmitt's most historical and geopolitical book. It describes the origin of the Eurocentric global order, which Schmitt dates from the discovery of the New World, discusses its specific character and its contribution to civilization, analyzes the reasons for its decline at the end of the 19th century, and concludes with prospects for a new world order. It is a reasoned, yet passionate argument in defense of the European achievement - not only in creating the first truly global order of international law, but also in limiting war to conflicts among sovereign states, which, in effect, civilized war. In Schmitt's view, the European sovereign state was the greatest achievement of Occidental rationalism; in becoming the principal agency of secularization, the European state created the modern age. Since the problematic of a new nomos of the earth has become still more critical with the onset of the post-modern age and post-modern war, Schmitt's text is even more timely and challenging. Remarkable in Schmitt's discussion of the European epoch of world history is the role played by the New World, which ultimately replaced the Old World as the center of the earth and became the arbiter in European and world politics. According to Schmitt, the United States' internal conflicts between economic presence and political absence, between isolationism and interventionism, are global problems, which today continue to hamper the creation of a new world order. But however critical Schmitt is of American actions at the turn of the 20th century and after World War I, he considered the United States to be the only political entity capable of resolving the crisis of global order.

The Nomos of the Earth in the International Law of Jus Publicum Europaeum

Carl Schmitt (1888-1985), one of the great legal and political thinkers of the 20th century, thought long and hard about the role and significance of war. He saw how the international law of the Eurocentric era of world history began to falter at the end of World War I and foundered at the end of World War II. Following World War II, belligerent acts around the world began to assume a distinctly partisan character, and the belligerents were increasingly non-state actors. His Theory of the Partisan originated in two lectures that Schmitt delivered in 1962, which addressed the transformation of war in the post-European age. Schmitt concludes Theory of the Partisan with the statement: "The theory of the partisan flows into the question of the concept of the political, into the question of the real enemy and of a new nomos of the earth." Theory of the Partisan analyzes a specific and significant phenomenon that ushered in a new theory of war and enmity. It contains an implicit theory of the terrorist, which in the 21st century has ushered in yet another new theory of war and enmity. Consequently, this work is not only of historical interest, but is relevant to contemporary political and military developments and concerns.

Theory of the Partisan: Intermediate Commentary on the Concept of the Political

Engineering & Transportation

Engineering

Though Carl Schmitt is best known for his legal and political theory, his 1956 Hamlet or Hecuba provides an innovative and insightful analysis of Shakespeare s tragedy in terms of the historical situation of its creation. Schmitt argues that the significance of Shakespeare s work hinges on its ability to integrate history in the form of the taboo of the queen and the deformation of the figure of the avenger. He uses this interpretation to develop a theory of myth and politics that serves as a cultural foundation for his concept of political representation. More than literary criticism or historical analysis, Schmitt s book lays out a comprehensive theory of the relationship between aesthetics and politics that responds to alternative ideas developed by Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adorno. Jennifer R. Rust and Julia Reinhard Lupton s introduction places Schmitt s work in the context of contemporary Renaissance studies, and David Pan s afterword analyzes the links to Schmitt s political theory. Presented in its entirety in an authorized translation, Hamlet or Hecuba is essential reading for scholars of Shakespeare and Schmitt alike. Praise for Carl Schmitt's Hamlet or Hecuba "Beyond ancient tragedy and the Atreides, through the themes of vengeance, of the brother and of election, this essay also questions the political destiny of the 'European spirit.'" --Jacques Derrida, The Politics of Friendship "The intrusion into Shakespeare's Hamlet by the highly controversial German legal and political theorist and constitutional lawyer Carl Schmitt will raise eyebrows in the English-speaking world. The able English translation and introductions will engender a plethora of studies by Shakespeare scholars, and by political scientists and historians who will analyze subtexts in order to decipher Schmitt the man from Schmitt the thinker." --George Schwab, President, National Committee on American Foreign Policy "In his remarkable essay on Hamlet, Schmitt argues that the playwright's audience shared with him not only a horizon of cultural and historical knowledge; they were also, he claims, profoundly attuned to the symptomatic gaps and displacements, to the dream-like traces of a political unconscious, at work in the play. Here, Schmitt claims to have definitively deciphered what might be called the 'latent dream thoughts' of Shakespeare's most famous tragedy. It is, however, only by way of the inner tensions of Schmitt's own essay, made vibrantly legible in the brilliant introduction by this volume's editors, that the reader can fully grasp the ways in which the traumatic entry of historical time into the realm of aesthetic play generates Hamlet's persistent force as the paradigmatic tragedy of modern European theater." --Eric Santner, Professor of Germanic Studies, The University of Chicago "Like Hamlet's Mousetrap, Carl Schmitt's Hamlet or Hecuba is an incendiary provocation, one that still has the power to catch the conscience of Shakespeare critics half a century later. Schmitt's deep reflections on the nature of tragedy, the relations between the real and the aesthetic, and the barbarity of Elizabethan theater, will engage and sometimes irk Shakespeareans of every stripe. His critical practice--poised somewhere between a Kantian contest of faculties and an Anschluss--grates productively against the more pacific versions of interdisciplinarity that reign today. And Rust and Lupton's fine introduction lays bare the religious, political, and philosophical stakes of Schmitt's Shakespearean encounter." --Richard Halpern, Professor of English, The Johns Hopkins University

Hamlet or Hecuba: The Intrusion of the Time into the Play

Dramas & Plays

Originally published in 1942, at the height of the Second World War, Land and Sea: A World-Historical Meditation recounts Carl Schmitt's view of world history "as a history of the battles of sea powers against land powers and of land powers against sea powers." Schmitt here unfolds his view of world history from the Peloponnesian War to European colonial expansion to the birth pangs of capitalism, while polemically setting Nazi Germany as a continental land power against Britain and the United States as its maritime enemies. In Land and Sea, Schmitt offers his interpretations of the rise of Venice, piracy, "corsair capitalism," the spatial revolution of European colonial expansion, the rise of the British empire, and his readings of thinkers as diverse as Seneca, Shakespeare, Herman Melville, and Benjamin Disraeli. This new and authorized edition from Telos Press Publishing, translated by Samuel Garrett Zeitlin and edited by Russell A. Berman and Samuel Garrett Zeitlin, includes extensive textual annotations that compare critical variations between the original 1942 edition of Land and Sea and the subsequent editions published in 1954 and 1981.

Land and Sea: A World-Historical Meditation

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Carl Schmitt. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Carl Schmitt

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Carl Schmitt. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty

Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought)

The Crisis Of Parliamentary Democracy

Writings on War

Writings on War

Nomos of the Earth in the International Law of Jus Publicum Europaeum

The Nomos of the Earth in the International Law of Jus Publicum Europaeum

Theory of the Partisan: Intermediate Commentary on the Concept of the Political

Hamlet or Hecuba: The Intrusion of the Time into the Play

Land and Sea: A World-Historical Meditation