LAUSR

promote political theory in American political science and to theorize the concepts of freedom, power, and dictatorship—projects that remained unfinished. Kettler and Wheatland successfully remind us of Neumann’s significance as a political thinker, and they show how he strove to connect theory with the “brute facts of political life” in a field dominated in the United States by empiricism. Yet the book has significant weaknesses. Overly long, detailed description and exegesis of one publication after another undercuts its readability and clarity—especially for non-specialists—as does the lack of biographical material or context. One learns little about Neumann himself or his family, and there is nothing in the book about the “making” of the Weimar intellectual, his arrest in 1933, or the circumstances of his flight from Germany and life abroad. Finally, while the notes are detailed, the lack of a bibliography is inconvenient for those seeking easy access to the sources—especially to Neumann’s writings. These shortcomings are unfortunate, but do not negate the authors’ achievement in bringing the ideas of this important figure to an English-language audience.