The Myth of the State

by Ernst Cassirer (Author)

7 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-0300000368

ISBN-10: 0300000367

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A great contemporary German philosopher attacks the explosive problem of political myth in our day, and reveals how the myth of the state evolved from primitive times to prepare the way for the rise of the modern totalitarian state. "A brilliant survey of some of the major texts in the history of political theory."—Kenneth Burke, The Nation.

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Product details

Paperback: 303 pages
Publisher: Yale University Press (September 10, 1961)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0300000367
ISBN-13: 978-0300000368
Product Dimensions: 5 x 0.7 x 8 inches
Shipping Weight: 14.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 7 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #793,947 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2384 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Folklore & Mythology
- #5143 in Books > Textbooks > Humanities > Philosophy
- #8463 in Books > Textbooks > Social Sciences > Political Science

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David in Telluride, Colorado

The Last Writings of Ernst Cassirer, renowned German philsopher

April 22, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Interesting "last" book by the great Ernst Cassirer of Germany, published posthumously. The Cassirer family was among the most prominent Jewish families in Germany before the war, and Ernst Cassirer remains the most prominent of this illustrious family, which includes members currently maintaining a lawsuit against the Kingdom of Spain and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid for the return of an Impressionist masterpiece by Camille Pissarro stolen by the Nazis in 1939, just before Hitler invaded Poland and the war began in Europe.

Professor Cassirer left the University of Hamburg in 1933 with the rise of the Nazis and Adolph Hitler to power in Germany. During the war, he taught at both Yale and Columbia. Ernst Cassirer passed away in 1945.

In this book, among other things, Cassirer explores the nexus of myth and politics, with implications today in America.

Enjoy this last book by one of the great thinkers of the 20th century.

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Dana Garrett

More Theory than Myth of the State

August 28, 2010

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

While Ernst Cassirer provides an illuminating analysis of the nature of myth in The Myth of the State, he never tells his reader what the western myth of the state is. Extrapolating from his analysis of Plato, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Machiavelli, Carlyle, the racist Gobineau, Hegel, et al, what emerges is the unfolding of a theory of the state, not a mythos of it. The passionate and emotive elements of myth, which Cassirer brilliantly explicates about myth in general, are never made explicit in his analysis of the theory ("myth") of the state (except at the end when he discusses Nazism). If anything, these elements are subsumed in the content of his analysis.

Nevertheless, Cassirer masterfully explains much of the development of the western theory of the state through time. He hits on many of the salient thinkers and philosophical movements. Yet, inexplicably, some important thinkers seem to get short shrift comparatively speaking (e.g. Aristotle) and others scarcely manage more than a brief mention (e.g. Marx). Readers might find (what turned out to be) Cassirer's parting shot at Heidegger and the proto-fascist elements of his philosophy fascinating (Cassirer died in 1945 and The Myth of the State was published posthumously). Perhaps most intriguing is how Cassirer reserves most of his ire for Hegel, arguably making his philosophy most responsible for the intellectual underpinnings of the rise of National Socialism in Germany--an analysis not entirely unpredictable for a neo-Kantian like Cassirer to make given how, in the historical estimation of many, Hegel eclipsed Kant as Germany's preeminent philosopher.

Notwithstanding these limitations, The Myth of the State is worth reading. Cassirer's analysis of the development of the western theory of the state is evidently too sagacious to be missed.

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October 26, 2015

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Cassirer observations are precise and stimulating.

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Joseph W. Maybee

A very Satisfied Customer!

January 20, 2015

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

This purchase was a real and valuable find, obtained at an eminently reasonable price, and in good condition, as described! Thanks to you, I discovered the book in my library, but had forgotten to add it to my computerized bibliographic file, an oversight which I have just corrected. I own several of Cassirer's works that have been translated into English! Let me know if you have translations of his other works.

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Interesting

January 9, 2016

Format: Paperback

An interesting, posthumously published book from the great intellectual historian Ernst Cassirer. The Myth of the State is an effort to explain the intellectual background and appeal of the Nazi state. This book displays a couple of Cassirer's most impressive features; his remarkable erudition and often elegant writing style. Probably reflecting that fact that it was prepared from an unpublished manuscript after Cassirer's premature death, this is not an entirely coherent book. It reads more like a series of somewhat linked essays and I don't think that Cassirer really explicitly pulls all his analysis together.

Cassirer clearly sees Nazism and related phenomena as the recrudescence of "primitive," pre-rational modes of thought in the modern age. This book opens with a discussion of myth, drawing on anthopological literature, and emphasizing the social aspects of myth, its emotional nature, and the use of myth based ritual to manipulate the world. This is followed by a series of chapters looking at the concept of the state across a broad swathe of the western intellectual tradition, starting with Plato and working right up to the 19th century. Several of these essays emphasize efforts to develop a rational conception of the state as a vehicle of justice. Like much of Cassirer's work, these are individually interesting and very leaned discussions. These sections terminate with a concise discussion of the rejection of most prior conceptions of the state, and especially attempts at rational foundations, by early Romantic thinkers, setting the stage for what Cassirer sees clearly as pernicious developments in the 19th century.

The book finishes with a series of interesting essays about the 19th century background of Nazism. These include Carlyle's hero worship. the racist theories of Gobineau, and Hegel's exaltation of the state. Cassirer sees a fatal compound of these ideas as forming the essential platform for Nazi ideology. In the context of the great stresses of the Weimar and interwar period, elements of these ideas were incorporated into a form of magical, pre-rational thinking that was a 20th century equivalent of primitive mythology.

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Ashtar Command

The myth of Ernst Cassirer

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