The Concept of the Political: Expanded Edition

In this work, legal theorist and political philosopher Carl Schmitt argues that liberalism's basis in individual rights cannot provide reasonable justification for sacrificing oneself for the state. George Schwab's introduction to his translation of the 1932 German edition traces Schmitt's intellectual development through the turbulent period of German history leading to the one-party state. This expanded edition includes analysis by Leo Strauss and a foreword by Tracy B. Strong contextualizing Schmitt's work for contemporary readers. It also contains a translation of Schmitt's 1929 lecture "The Age of Neutralizations and Depoliticizations," which Schmitt himself added to the 1932 edition. The work presents Schmitt's definition of the political as the distinction between friend and enemy, and his understanding of the political nature of man and the state.