---
product_id: 3758833
title: "The Concept of the Political: Expanded Edition"
price: "S$47"
currency: SGD
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 13
url: https://www.desertcart.sg/products/3758833-the-concept-of-the-political-expanded-edition
store_origin: SG
region: Singapore
---

# The Concept of the Political: Expanded Edition

**Price:** S$47
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** The Concept of the Political: Expanded Edition
- **How much does it cost?** S$47 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.sg](https://www.desertcart.sg/products/3758833-the-concept-of-the-political-expanded-edition)

## Best For

- Customers looking for quality international products

## Why This Product

- Free international shipping included
- Worldwide delivery with tracking
- 15-day hassle-free returns

## Description

In this, his most influential work, legal theorist and political philosopher Carl Schmitt argues that liberalism’s basis in individual rights cannot provide a reasonable justification for sacrificing oneself for the state—a critique as cogent today as when it first appeared. George Schwab’s introduction to his translation of the 1932 German edition highlights Schmitt’s intellectual journey through the turbulent period of German history leading to the Hitlerian one-party state. In addition to analysis by Leo Strauss and a foreword by Tracy B. Strong placing Schmitt’s work into contemporary context, this expanded edition also includes a translation of Schmitt’s 1929 lecture “The Age of Neutralizations and Depoliticizations,” which the author himself added to the 1932 edition of the book. An essential update on a modern classic, The Concept of the Political, Expanded Edition belongs on the bookshelf of anyone interested in political theory or philosophy.

Review: The return of the repressed (irrationality) - This is a great book but one that must be read with the greatest of care. This is so for various reasons. As some of the other reviewers have pointed out, Schmitt's book is full of words whose meaning has changed, e.g., liberalism and democracy. Secondly, Schmitt is a slippery writer. O heck, there are times when he writes deceptively. Thirdly, Schmitt assumes a lot without argument. Finally, there is the evidence of his own life (he entered the Nazi Party within several months of publishing the 1933 edition of his book and never publicly expressed any regret about his involvement with that regime.) In that sense, we can state that his own life provides a sort of worst-case demonstration as to where his thinking leads. I want to outline what I think Schmitt is doing in this book. Along the way I will illustrate my points above. I will then offer a few suggestions as to why Schmitt remains an attractive and useful read (the two qualities are distinct). Schmitt's first theoretical enemy is the use of rationality in the political (more on that usage in a moment). He is opposed to any attempt to transcend the individual state, to work toward a politics that embraces all of humanity. His concept of the political is an odd one. It comes into being on a sliding scale, a political exemplar of Hegel's dictum that changes in quantity eventually become changes in quality. At some point, a dispute begins to enter the political. It can be a religious, a moral or an economic dispute. But at some point, according to Schmitt, it starts to get existential, it starts to be perceived as an issue about a way of life. At that point, it becomes political and leaves behind the religious, the moral, etc. At it's most extreme, it leads to war and possibly the annihilation of one's way of life. This idea is just chock full of assumptions asserted by definition. The separation of the political and the other modes of being is a case in point. Consider this quote: "The distinction of friend and enemy...can exist theoretically and practically, without having simultaneously to draw upon all these moral, aesthetic, economic, or other distinctions" p.27. This is also a good example of the sneaky writing I mentioned. Notice that fact that all he is saying is that the political can exist without all of them simultaneously. He says nothing about the political being able to exist without some or any of them. The distinction between the political and the other modes of being is not clear cut as he wants to make out. So the political seems to be nothing more than the intensification of disagreement in other modes of being. Schmitt wants us to believe otherwise but, to my reading, he does not succeed. Schmitt's other great enemy is individualism. Schmitt believes that a consistent individualism is the negation of the political. This consistency is expressed in the (classical)liberal definition of the state as a minimalist state dedicated to the purpose "of protecting individual freedom and private property" p.70. (The discussion on these pages exemplify what I mean by his historically specific usages of words like liberalism and democracy). So what is being argued for by Schmitt is a dissolving the the line between the private and the public sphere in the state. He sees the political as based on a people, a Volk, who have a traditional way of life that need on occasion to be defended. That way of life is what justifies ultimately that state's sovereignty. The ultimate expression of that sovereignty is the expectation that the individual will sacrifice his/her life for that state if need be. Given that reading (especially when combined with Schmitt's well-documented antisemitism), it is easy to see how he could turn to the Nazi party as a means to achieve his idea of politics. So why read the guy? For a variety of reasons. He exemplifies one of the weaknesses of liberalism/rationalism which is that together they are corrosive of all of the larger than life visions of the human good be those visions religious or political. It seems to me that Western political philosophy is fixated on the idea of (Augustine's)"things loved in common",i.e., on a shared sense of what is the just, the true, the noble and the beautiful as the foundation of a political society, of a state. For centuries, we had a sense of that in one or the other form of Christianity but we have outgrown that. Many of those on the left were seduced by the romanticism of one or the other form of Marxism. There are many on the left today that are trying to create a new ontology to meet that need or are turning back to Christianity in order to look for tools to create that shared sense of a way of life. Those on the right try to reimpose Christianity in one form or another(Schmitt himself turned to Catholicism,I believe) or Islam or, in some cases, they indulge themselves in a conservative post-modernism. Me, I prefer the road that I find suggested in the writings of Claude Lefort. I prefer to believe that that a shared sense of life is a work in practice, never completed, that largely relies on rational criticism but also on faith and reliance in the democratic masses in all their glorious otherness. Schmitt, like Hobbes, like Marx, is a tool set full of insights into the difficulties of the task and of the material (recalcitrant Humanity) but he is no guide. But then there are no guides. There is simply the work that we have to do of getting on with each other.
Review: The Limits of Liberalism: Revisiting Schmitt’s Defining Critique of Politics - Carl Schmitt’s The Concept of the Political remains one of the most provocative and influential works in modern political philosophy. First published in 1932, it distills Schmitt’s central thesis: that politics is ultimately defined by the distinction between friend and enemy, and that liberalism’s focus on individual rights and neutrality cannot provide a convincing foundation for the collective sacrifices demanded by the state. This expanded edition enriches the original with George Schwab’s insightful introduction, situating Schmitt’s arguments in the turbulent years of Weimar Germany, as well as with Leo Strauss’s critical engagement and Tracy B. Strong’s foreword, which reframes the work for contemporary readers. Particularly valuable is the inclusion of Schmitt’s 1929 lecture The Age of Neutralizations and Depoliticizations, which anticipates many of his later arguments about the impossibility of a purely apolitical order. For readers of political theory, this book is both a challenge and a necessity. Schmitt’s sharp critique of liberalism continues to unsettle, not because it offers easy answers, but because it forces us to confront enduring questions about the nature of sovereignty, legitimacy, and political community. Whether one agrees with him or not, The Concept of the Political is an essential text for understanding the tensions that still shape debates about democracy, authority, and the role of the state today.

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #62,865 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #13 in Political History (Books) #77 in Social Philosophy #80 in Philosophy (Books) |
| Customer Reviews | 4.7 out of 5 stars 268 Reviews |

## Images

![The Concept of the Political: Expanded Edition - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51Y58ZQ4t4L.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The return of the repressed (irrationality)
*by G***R on July 2, 2012*

This is a great book but one that must be read with the greatest of care. This is so for various reasons. As some of the other reviewers have pointed out, Schmitt's book is full of words whose meaning has changed, e.g., liberalism and democracy. Secondly, Schmitt is a slippery writer. O heck, there are times when he writes deceptively. Thirdly, Schmitt assumes a lot without argument. Finally, there is the evidence of his own life (he entered the Nazi Party within several months of publishing the 1933 edition of his book and never publicly expressed any regret about his involvement with that regime.) In that sense, we can state that his own life provides a sort of worst-case demonstration as to where his thinking leads. I want to outline what I think Schmitt is doing in this book. Along the way I will illustrate my points above. I will then offer a few suggestions as to why Schmitt remains an attractive and useful read (the two qualities are distinct). Schmitt's first theoretical enemy is the use of rationality in the political (more on that usage in a moment). He is opposed to any attempt to transcend the individual state, to work toward a politics that embraces all of humanity. His concept of the political is an odd one. It comes into being on a sliding scale, a political exemplar of Hegel's dictum that changes in quantity eventually become changes in quality. At some point, a dispute begins to enter the political. It can be a religious, a moral or an economic dispute. But at some point, according to Schmitt, it starts to get existential, it starts to be perceived as an issue about a way of life. At that point, it becomes political and leaves behind the religious, the moral, etc. At it's most extreme, it leads to war and possibly the annihilation of one's way of life. This idea is just chock full of assumptions asserted by definition. The separation of the political and the other modes of being is a case in point. Consider this quote: "The distinction of friend and enemy...can exist theoretically and practically, without having simultaneously to draw upon all these moral, aesthetic, economic, or other distinctions" p.27. This is also a good example of the sneaky writing I mentioned. Notice that fact that all he is saying is that the political can exist without all of them simultaneously. He says nothing about the political being able to exist without some or any of them. The distinction between the political and the other modes of being is not clear cut as he wants to make out. So the political seems to be nothing more than the intensification of disagreement in other modes of being. Schmitt wants us to believe otherwise but, to my reading, he does not succeed. Schmitt's other great enemy is individualism. Schmitt believes that a consistent individualism is the negation of the political. This consistency is expressed in the (classical)liberal definition of the state as a minimalist state dedicated to the purpose "of protecting individual freedom and private property" p.70. (The discussion on these pages exemplify what I mean by his historically specific usages of words like liberalism and democracy). So what is being argued for by Schmitt is a dissolving the the line between the private and the public sphere in the state. He sees the political as based on a people, a Volk, who have a traditional way of life that need on occasion to be defended. That way of life is what justifies ultimately that state's sovereignty. The ultimate expression of that sovereignty is the expectation that the individual will sacrifice his/her life for that state if need be. Given that reading (especially when combined with Schmitt's well-documented antisemitism), it is easy to see how he could turn to the Nazi party as a means to achieve his idea of politics. So why read the guy? For a variety of reasons. He exemplifies one of the weaknesses of liberalism/rationalism which is that together they are corrosive of all of the larger than life visions of the human good be those visions religious or political. It seems to me that Western political philosophy is fixated on the idea of (Augustine's)"things loved in common",i.e., on a shared sense of what is the just, the true, the noble and the beautiful as the foundation of a political society, of a state. For centuries, we had a sense of that in one or the other form of Christianity but we have outgrown that. Many of those on the left were seduced by the romanticism of one or the other form of Marxism. There are many on the left today that are trying to create a new ontology to meet that need or are turning back to Christianity in order to look for tools to create that shared sense of a way of life. Those on the right try to reimpose Christianity in one form or another(Schmitt himself turned to Catholicism,I believe) or Islam or, in some cases, they indulge themselves in a conservative post-modernism. Me, I prefer the road that I find suggested in the writings of Claude Lefort. I prefer to believe that that a shared sense of life is a work in practice, never completed, that largely relies on rational criticism but also on faith and reliance in the democratic masses in all their glorious otherness. Schmitt, like Hobbes, like Marx, is a tool set full of insights into the difficulties of the task and of the material (recalcitrant Humanity) but he is no guide. But then there are no guides. There is simply the work that we have to do of getting on with each other.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Limits of Liberalism: Revisiting Schmitt’s Defining Critique of Politics
*by G***O on October 2, 2025*

Carl Schmitt’s The Concept of the Political remains one of the most provocative and influential works in modern political philosophy. First published in 1932, it distills Schmitt’s central thesis: that politics is ultimately defined by the distinction between friend and enemy, and that liberalism’s focus on individual rights and neutrality cannot provide a convincing foundation for the collective sacrifices demanded by the state. This expanded edition enriches the original with George Schwab’s insightful introduction, situating Schmitt’s arguments in the turbulent years of Weimar Germany, as well as with Leo Strauss’s critical engagement and Tracy B. Strong’s foreword, which reframes the work for contemporary readers. Particularly valuable is the inclusion of Schmitt’s 1929 lecture The Age of Neutralizations and Depoliticizations, which anticipates many of his later arguments about the impossibility of a purely apolitical order. For readers of political theory, this book is both a challenge and a necessity. Schmitt’s sharp critique of liberalism continues to unsettle, not because it offers easy answers, but because it forces us to confront enduring questions about the nature of sovereignty, legitimacy, and political community. Whether one agrees with him or not, The Concept of the Political is an essential text for understanding the tensions that still shape debates about democracy, authority, and the role of the state today.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Less expensive then B&N
*by C***J on July 9, 2026*

Used as a text book.

---

## Why Shop on Desertcart?

- 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016
- 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories
- 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price
- 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members)
- 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection
- ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews

**Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.sg/products/3758833-the-concept-of-the-political-expanded-edition](https://www.desertcart.sg/products/3758833-the-concept-of-the-political-expanded-edition)

---

*Product available on Desertcart Singapore*
*Store origin: SG*
*Last updated: 2026-11-11*