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Learning from Franz L. Neumann

Law, Theory, and the Brute Facts of Political Life

David Kettler author Thomas Wheatland author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Anthem Press

Published:26th Jul '19

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Learning from Franz L. Neumann cover

An examination of Franz Neumann’s social and political theory in the context of his career as a learner and teacher

"Learning from Franz Neumann" examines the political and legal thought of Franz Neumann in relation to the contemporary decline of the social welfare state and the rise of populism.

A 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

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“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

ISBN: 9781783089970

Dimensions: 229mm x 153mm x 26mm

Weight: 454g

510 pages