Described as both 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 criticism of liberal democratic ideals and institutions distinguish him as one of the most original contributors to the theory of modern politics. In Political Romanticism he defends a concept of political action based on notions of good and evil, justice and injustice, and attacks the political passivity entailed by the romanticism of experience.