Learning from Franz L. Neumann: Law, Theory, and the Brute Facts of Political Life(Key Issues in Modern Sociology)

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

Table of Contents:
Contents; 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.

About the Author :
David Kettler immigrated to the United States in 1940. Following an advanced education in political theory at Columbia University, his long academic career has been divided among Ohio State, Trent University and Bard College. He has published 18 books as author or editor and many articles and chapters focusing on problems arising from the relations between intellectuals and the political sphere. Thomas Wheatland, who received his BA from Brown University and his MA and PhD from Boston College in German intellectual history, is associate professor of history at Assumption College in Worcester, USA. The author of The Frankfurt School in Exile (2009), he has also written numerous articles and book chapters on critical theory and its history, the exiles from Central Europe during the Second World War and the transatlantic history of social thought in the twentieth century.

Review :
New Books Network -- Interview Link “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