The Weimar Republic - from 1919 until 1933, when Hitler came into power - witnessed crucial debates on law and politics. These debates are reexamined in this book. Were, for example, democratic rules and procedures an adequate basis for democracy, as Hugo Preuss and Hans Kelsen suggested? Or should constitutional law elaborate the deeper, basic principles embedded in the democratic constitution itself, as Hermann Heller argued? Was the president the immediate "guardian of the constitution," as Carl Schmitt's concept of "representation" suggested? Or was Schmitt's concept itself subject to...

This book examines how communist East Germany functioned according to the views of its leading experts in law, economics, philosophy, and cybernetics. The state-socialist countries aimed for post-capitalist modernization, which they hoped to achieve through dictatorship. The lessons of this failed combination of dictatorship and social transformation remain relevant today. Going beyond the research of many works on the social theory of modernization, this book reveals how East German theorists prevailed under Stalinism.

The philosopher of religion and critic of idealism, Ludwig Feuerbach had a far-reaching impact on German radicalism around the time of the Revolution of 1848. This intellectual history explores how Feuerbach s critique of religion served as a rallying point for radicals, and how they paradoxically sought to create a new, post-religious form of religiosity as part of the revolutionary aim. At issue for the Feuerbachian radicals was the emergence of a humanity emancipated from the constraints of mere institutions, able to express itself freely and harmoniously. Caldwell also touches on Moses...

This wide-ranging collection brings together contributions from historians, political scientists, policymakers, and others to provide much-needed perspective on the unification of Germany as it actually played out in real historical time.