Theories of the state

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Adam Freedman

"Liberals believe that "states' rights" is merely a smokescreen for racist repression. What we have forgotten is that the Constitution itself is a compromise between state and federal governments--a compromise the Federal government no longer respects. Historically, the doctrine of states' rights has been a powerful engine of prosperity and a protector of American freedoms. Conservatives need to reclaim states' rights as an honorable tradition, and a necessary component of constitutional government"--

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Carl Schmitt

A pioneer in legal and political theory, Schmitt traces the prehistory of political romanticism by examining its relationship to revolutionary and reactionary tendencies in modern European history.

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Heinrich Meier

Carl Schmitt is the most famous and controversial defender of political theology in our century. But in his best-known work, The Concept of the Political, issued in 1927, 1932, and 1933, political considerations led him to conceal the dependence of his entire political theory on his faith in divine revelation. In 1932 political philosopher Leo Strauss published a critical review of The Concept of the Political that earned him Schmitt's respect and initiated an extremely subtle interchange between Schmitt and Strauss regarding Schmitt's critique of liberalism. Although Schmitt never answered Strauss publicly, in the third edition of his book he changed key passages in response to Strauss's criticisms without ever acknowledging them. In the present book Heinrich Meier astutely follows the trail left by the interlocutors. The present volume includes a new translation of Strauss's classic essay and the first English version of three letters to Schmitt from Strauss. It is essential reading for students of politics, political theory, and philosophy.

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Dean Hammer

The Puritan Tradition examines how a Puritan past, historically reconstructed as a founding legend, gave meaning to early American political culture. In tracing the rhetorical invocations of this Puritan legacy, this study lends important insight into how this constructed past helped shape the political thought that underlies revolutionary, Federalist, and Whig political discourse.