Habermas: An Intellectual Biography

This book follows postwar Germany's leading philosopher and social thinker, J rgen Habermas, through four decades of political and constitutional struggle over the shape of liberal democracy in Germany. Habermas's most influential theories - of the public sphere, communicative action, and modernity - were decisively shaped by major West German political events: the failure to de-Nazify the judiciary, the rise of a powerful Constitutional Court, student rebellions in the late 1960s, the changing fortunes of the Social Democratic Party, NATO's decision to station nuclear weapons, and the unexpected collapse of East Germany. In turn, Habermas's writings on state, law, and constitution played a critical role in reorienting German political thought and culture to a progressive liberal-democratic model. Matthew Specter uniquely illuminates the interrelationship between the thinker and his culture.

Author: Matthew G. Specter
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 09/27/2010
Pages: 278
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.85lbs
Size: 8.92h x 6.12w x 0.61d
ISBN: 9780521738316

Review Citation(s):
Choice 06/01/2011

About the Author
Specter, Matthew G.: - Matthew Specter is Assistant Professor of History at Central Connecticut State University. He has published in the journals Modern Intellectual History and the European Legacy and has presented his work at Harvard's Center for European Studies, the National Humanities Center, the German Historical Institute in Washington DC, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, and the American Historical Association, as well as to audiences in Vienna, Frankfurt, Berlin, Cortona, and Haifa. Professor Specter received his PhD from Duke University and previously held the position of Postdoctoral Fellow at George Mason University.

This title is not returnable