Christopher J. Thornhill Knihy

This book sets out a new reading of the much neglected philosophy of Karl Jaspers. By questioning the common perception of Jaspers, it re-establishes him as a central figure in modern European philosophy.

The Great War in East Africa is a ‘sideshow’ campaign that has acquired legendary status. The German military Governor in today’s Tanzania, General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, was a guerilla leader of genius, and, with a staff of white officers and a small army of Africans, the loyal Askaris, he ran rings around vastly superior allied forces - not least around another famous guerilla leader, South Afriuca’s Jan Smuts. This interesting book casts new light upon the campaign, since its author, unlike many of his brother officers, was an old east Africa hand and knew the terrain where the war was fought well. His breezy and charming account, does not seek to gloss over the many difficulties and frustrations of the campaign, nor to glamourise his own role in it - which included one hair-raising expedition behind the enemy’s lines. In his foreword to the book, Francis Brett Young, author of a classic account of the campaign,. says of this ‘The soldier who wants to realize what bush-fighting is like could not find a better text-book’. With 22 illustrations and a map.

This book provides an accessible and comprehensive introduction to the major political thinkers of modern Germany. It includes chapters on the works of Max Weber, Carl Schmitt, Franz Neumann, Otto Kirchheimer, Jurgen Habermas and Niklas Luhmann. These works are examined in their social and historical contexts, ranging from the period of Bismarck to the present day. A clear picture is presented of the connections between individual theoretical positions and the general political conditions of modern Germany. Areas of political history covered in particular depth include nineteenth-century legal and parliamentary history, aspects of German liberalism, Weimar social democracy, political Catholicism, Adenauer and Erhard, Brandt's reforms and the Tendenzwende of the late 1970s. By closely linking intellectual and political history, this work examines how recent German political theory has developed as a set of varying responses to recurring aspects and problems of political life in modern Germany. At the same time, it addresses the philosophical and political implications of the works which it treats, and it critically examines how modern German political theory has contributed to broader attempts to theorize political legitimacy and politics itself. This book will be of interest to students of political theory, German studies and European political history.

From the Reformation to the present, German political philosophy has done much to shape the contours of theoretical debate on politics, law, and the conditions of political legitimacy; many of the most decisive and influential theoretical impulses in European political history have originated in Germany. Until now, there has been no thorough history of German political philosophy available in English. This book offers a synoptic account of the main debates in its evolution.