George Schwab

The life of an African-American iconHarriet Tubman (born in slavery, Araminta Ross in Maryland in 1822) was a remarkable abolitionist and political activist. She escaped from captivity and subsequently undertook thirteen missions on the 'Underground Railroad', risking capture and bondage, to rescue approximately 70 people from their slave-masters. After the introduction of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850 she guided her charges all the way to Canada to establish them in new lives there. During the American Civil War Harriet volunteered to be a cook and nurse. Such was her courage and commitment to the cause of liberty, that she then became a scout and spy for the Union Army. Notably she guided the raid at Combahee Ferry which liberated hundreds of slaves. In later life she became active in the cause of women's suffrage--an inspiration to all African-Americans--and her fame rightly endures to the present day. Harriet Tubman survived two husbands, was devoutly religious and died in 1913, at more than 90 years of age, in a residential home for African-Americans she had founded. This Leonaur edition contains two accounts of her life for good value. Leonaur editions are newly typeset and are not facsimiles; each title is available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket.

The life of an African-American iconHarriet Tubman (born in slavery, Araminta Ross in Maryland in 1822) was a remarkable abolitionist and political activist. She escaped from captivity and subsequently undertook thirteen missions on the 'Underground Railroad', risking capture and bondage, to rescue approximately 70 people from their slave-masters. After the introduction of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850 she guided her charges all the way to Canada to establish them in new lives there. During the American Civil War Harriet volunteered to be a cook and nurse. Such was her courage and commitment to the cause of liberty, that she then became a scout and spy for the Union Army. Notably she guided the raid at Combahee Ferry which liberated hundreds of slaves. In later life she became active in the cause of women's suffrage--an inspiration to all African-Americans--and her fame rightly endures to the present day. Harriet Tubman survived two husbands, was devoutly religious and died in 1913, at more than 90 years of age, in a residential home for African-Americans she had founded. This Leonaur edition contains two accounts of her life for good value. Leonaur editions are newly typeset and are not facsimiles; each title is available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket.

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 one-self 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 of a modern classic, "The Concept of the Political, Expanded Edition" belongs on the bookshelf of anyone interested in political theory or philosophy.

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.

The Challenge of the Exception is the key that unlocked the ideas of Carl Schmitt, a leading political theorist and jurist who influenced the thoughts of, among others, Hannah Arendt, Carl Joachim Friedrich, Otto Kirchheimer, Hans Morgenthau, Franz Neumann, and Leo Strauss. Professor Schwab clearly articulates Schmitt's key concepts and relates their centrality to politics and the state, to the political theory of liberalism, democracy and authoritarianism, and to international relations. When Schwab treats Schmitt's interpretations of constitutional questions, for example, he shows how political theory in Germany is inextricably linked with constitutional law, legal theory, and the country's history. Not content to merely deal with Schmitt's profound contributions to twentieth-century thought, Schwab devotes considerable space to the unconscionable compromises that he made with the Third Reich. This, however, failed to help him become the political and legal theorist of Hitler's Germany. Schwab shows how the new Schmitt was suspect from the beginning and, by 1936, Schmitt the hunter had become Schmitt the hunted. Schwab's presentation of the multifaceted Carl Schmitt exposes the reader to a truly interdisciplinary excursion into the humanities and social sciences.