Description
Book SynopsisA labor lawyer and publicist of weight in the Weimar Republic, Franz Neumann devoted his 21-year exile, after 1933, to understanding the failure of arrangements supposed to be in the line of social progress. He sought to delineate a new conception of democracy as a vehicle of social change. A remarkably effective teacher in the last years of his life, Neumann was also a gifted learner, whose negotiations with a series of forceful thinkers enabled him to work toward a promising intellectual strategy in political thinking. Learning from Franz L. Neumann examines Neumann’s social and political theory in the context of his career as a practitioner, learner and teacher
Trade Review“Drawing on a wealth of new sources, painstakingly reconstructing Franz Neumann’s intellectual trajectory and judiciously weighing his political interventions—including Neumann’s brief, but baffling role as a Soviet informant during the Second World War—David Kettler and Thomas Wheatland have written a rich and insightful study that amply rewards our patience.”
—Martin Jay, Sidney Hellman Ehrman Professor Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley, USA
“A meticulous and majestic account of the life and work of the too-often-forgotten but crucially important figure of Franz Neumann. His writings on law and democracy are still indispensable for our understanding of the Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany and Cold War America—and this book serves as an equally indispensable guide to them.”
—John P. McCormick, Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago, USA
Table of ContentsContents; I. The Challenge of Franz L. Neumann; II. Social Constitution, Social Power, and Responsibility: Neumann and Labor Advocacy; III. Power, Resistance, and Constitutions; IV. Franz Neumann’s Commemoration of Exile; V. After Weimar: The First Exile; VI. Neumann’s Second Exile: Negotiating the Politics of Research; VII. No Happy End: Unprofitable Negotiations; VIII. Behemoth: Wars Can Be Lost; IX. Franz Neumann in Washington: The Political Intellectual at War; X. Franz Neumann in the University: La guerre est finie; XI. The Legacy: Four Studies; Conclusion; Index.
