Land and Sea: A World-Historical Meditation

by Carl Schmitt, Samuel Garrett Zeitlin (Editor), Russell A. Berman (Editor)

Originally published in 1942, at the height of the Second World War, Land and Sea: A World-Historical Meditation recounts Carl Schmitt's view of world history "as a history of the battles of sea powers against land powers and of land powers against sea powers." Schmitt here unfolds his view of world history from the Peloponnesian War to European colonial expansion to the birth pangs of capitalism, while polemically setting Nazi Germany as a continental land power against Britain and the United States as its maritime enemies. In Land and Sea, Schmitt offers his interpretations of the rise of Venice, piracy, "corsair capitalism," the spatial revolution of European colonial expansion, the rise of the British empire, and his readings of thinkers as diverse as Seneca, Shakespeare, Herman Melville, and Benjamin Disraeli.

This new and authorized edition from Telos Press Publishing, translated by Samuel Garrett Zeitlin and edited by Russell A. Berman and Samuel Garrett Zeitlin, includes extensive textual annotations that compare critical variations between the original 1942 edition of Land and Sea and the subsequent editions published in 1954 and 1981.

Genres: History, Philosophy, Politics, Nonfiction, Geography, Germany, Theory

185 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1942

About the author

Carl Schmitt's early career as an academic lawyer falls into the last years of the Wilhelmine Empire. (See for Schmitt's life and career: Bendersky 1983; Balakrishnan 2000; Mehring 2009.) But Schmitt wrote his most influential works, as a young professor of constitutional law in Bonn and later in Berlin, during the Weimar-period: Political Theology, presenting Schmitt's theory of sovereignty, appeared in 1922, to be followed in 1923 by The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy, which attacked the legitimacy of parliamentary government. In 1927, Schmitt published the first version of his most famous work, The Concept of the Political, defending the view that all true politics is based on the distinction between friend and enemy. The culmination of Schmitt's work in the Weimar period, and arguably his greatest achievement, is the 1928 Constitutional Theory which systematically applied Schmitt's political theory to the interpretation of the Weimar constitution. During the political and constitutional crisis of the later Weimar Republic Schmitt published Legality and Legitimacy, a clear-sighted analysis of the breakdown of parliamentary government Germany, as well as The Guardian of the Constitution, which argued that the president as the head of the executive, and not a constitutional court, ought to be recognized as the guardian of the constitution. In these works from the later Weimar period, Schmitt's declared aim to defend the Weimar constitution is at times barely distinguishable from a call for constitutional revision towards a more authoritarian political framework (Dyzenhaus 1997, 70–85; Kennedy 2004, 154–78).

Though Schmitt had not been a supporter of National Socialism before Hitler came to power, he sided with the Nazis after 1933. Schmitt quickly obtained an influential position in the legal profession and came to be perceived as the ‘Crown Jurist’ of National Socialism. (Rüthers 1990; Mehring 2009, 304–436) He devoted himself, with undue enthusiasm, to such tasks as the defence of Hitler's extra-judicial killings of political opponents (PB 227–32) and the purging of German jurisprudence of Jewish influence (Gross 2007; Mehring 2009, 358–80). But Schmitt was ousted from his position of power within legal academia in 1936, after infighting with academic competitors who viewed Schmitt as a turncoat who had converted to Nazism only to advance his career. There is considerable debate about the causes of Schmitt's willingness to associate himself with the Nazis. Some authors point to Schmitt's strong ambition and his opportunistic character but deny ideological affinity (Bendersky 1983, 195–242; Schwab 1989). But a strong case has been made that Schmitt's anti-liberal jurisprudence, as well as his fervent anti-semitism, disposed him to support the Nazi regime (Dyzenhaus 1997, 85–101; Scheuerman 1999). Throughout the later Nazi period, Schmitt's work focused on questions of international law. The immediate motivation for this turn seems to have been the aim to justify Nazi-expansionism. But Schmitt was interested in the wider question of the foundations of international law, and he was convinced that the turn towards liberal cosmopolitanism in 20th century international law would undermine the conditions of stable and legitimate international legal order. Schmitt's theoretical work on the foundations of international law culminated in The Nomos of the Earth, written in the early 1940's, but not published before 1950. Due to his support for and involvement with the Nazi dictatorship, the obstinately unrepentant Schmitt was not allowed to return to an academic job after 1945 (Mehring 2009, 438–63). But he nevertheless remained an important figure in West Germany's conservative intellectual scene to his death in 1985 (van Laak 2002) and enjoyed a considerable degree of clandestine influence elsewhere (Scheuerman 1999, 183–251; Müller 2003).

Unsurprisingly, the significance and value of Schmitt's works

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Land and Sea" was a bit of a bizarre read. The beginning is written in the style of a myth, with an invocation of the four basic elements (earth, water, air, and fire) and discussions on pre-Socratic views on the nature of man in relation to these elements. The bulk of the essay that follows is Schmitt's account of world military history, beginning with ancient Athens and culminating in the discovery of the Americas.

What emerges from his commentary on historic battles and civilizational power struggles is the crucial insight that major political, cultural, and economic shifts are always presaged by what he calls a "spatial" revolution. In the past, these were the discovery of new land and resources; he focuses in particular on Western Europe's discovery and plunder of the Americas in the 1600s, which he saw as the first planetary-scale spatial revolution. The "spatial revolution" in Schmitt's post-WW1, pre-WW2 day was one of air (i.e., the development of the plane as a mode of transportation and weapon of war) and technology (electricity, automobiles, etc).

The implications are far-reaching. "Land and Sea" deals directly with the concept of wealth and its origins. Miscellaneously, it also forms the basis for Schmitt's contempt for liberalism, as well as some of the eccentric libertarian Seasteading projects and Elon Musk’s push for space exploration.

[Jawad A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Carl Schmitt was a great reader of literature. He says that 'Moby-Dick' is the greatest maritime epic since Homer's Odyssey. I immediately pored over Moby-Dick, and by God it is indeed!

[Pieter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Verwacht geen geopolitiek werk genre Mahan, maar een eerder filosofisch werkje dat de auteur schreef voor zijn 12-jarige dochter. De uitgever koos ervoor om het Duitse origineel op de linkerbladzijde af te drukken en de Nederlandse vertaling rechts. Hoop en al is de vertaalde tekst dus slechts een 70-tal bladzijden. Met historische voorbeelden toont Schmitt aan hoe volkeren met een verschillend perspectief (ofwel vanuit de zee ofwel vanop het land) naar de wereld kijken: Perzië versus Athene, Rome versus Carthago, Byzantium versus Ottomanen, Napoleon versus Groot-Brittannië. Nochtans kunnen landrijken een maritieme zijarm creëren, zoals Rome en de Ottomanen leerden van resp. de Carthagers en Byzantijnen.

De auteur schrijft vol bewondering voor het avontuur waarmee Melville in zijn Moby Dick schrijft over de woeste zee en hoe generaties Spanjaarden, Portugezen, Hollanders en Engelsen stoutmoedig de wijde wereld verkenden en beheersten. Groot-Brittannië werd ontegensprekelijk de heerser van de zeven zeeën na de Industriële Revolutie, het uitschakelen van Napoleontisch Frankrijk en haar financiële slagkracht. Schmitt beschrijft hoe Duitsland in de 19e eeuw en begin 20e eeuw met zelfde ingrediënten zijn maritieme voet naast die van de Britten kon zetten.

Aangenaam onderhoudend op literair vlak, maar weinig nieuwe elementen.

[Oğuz Kayra · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Savaş" der Heraklit, "bir araya getirir, hukuk ise kavgadır." - CS.

[Rodrigo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Didn't know Schmitt could write so beautifully. It's genuinely one of the best books on political theory/history or even philosophy that I've read in a long time (it's ofc super uncritical and it walks over a very creepy ground but still... Hegel would have loved this)

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

What is Seapower?

This book is translated by Simona Draghici. Since it is out of print I will summarize its twenty sections and give my thoughts at the end.

Myth and History

One.
The text begins with the epigraph 'As told to my daughter Anima'. When we begin to read, we wonder if we are reading a fairy tale. And it does begin that way. We learn that Man is a terrestrial being. Earth is represented as our mother in innumerable myths. So it seems that it is only the first of the ancient four ancient elements (earth, water, air, fire) that is truly ours.
- Or is it? Schmitt mentions that there are legends of deities and also men born of the sea. He does not seem to wonder at this, and approvingly quotes Goethe:
Everything is born of water,
Everything is preserved by water
Ocean, bring us your eternal rule!
"So, it is worth asking: what is our element? Are we the children of the earth or of the sea?"

Two.
Now, the term 'element', as used in the mythic 'four elements', is an unscientific term. "For our historical analysis, however, we retain the four elements, with their simple but evocative names. As a matter of fact, they are global designations of the various possibilities of human existence." I believe he means most especially land and sea powers.
We speak 'mythically,' because men are not things that only have causes; Man also has Reasons. He can respond to circumstances, especially novel circumstances, in novel ways. The implication is that the sciences will never entirely know Man. He can "choose, and at certain moments in his history, he may even go so far, through a gesture peculiar to him, as to change himself into a new form of his historical existence, in virtue of which he readjusts and reorganizes himself."

Three.
Yes, Man can go wherever he wants; but within the limits imposed by the physical world and his own nature. "World history is the history of the wars waged by maritime powers against land or continental powers and by land powers against sea or maritime powers."
We are no longer in a fairy tale. We have fallen (or, if you prefer, risen) from the mythical, via the 'constructivism' inherent both in man and history, to the given. The limits to our power are our material geo-political world and (Schmitt would add) the fact that there are always friends and enemies. This is the boundary that no historical creation can ever cross.
In the nineteenth century, the great example of the struggle between Land and Sea Powers was England and Russia. In Schmitt's explication of the battle between land (Behemoth) and sea (Leviathan) he says that "according to the cabbalists, behemoth tries to tear leviathan to pieces with its horns and teeth, while in turn, leviathan tries hard to stop the land animal’s mouth and nostrils with its flaps and fins in order to deprive it of food and air." Land power battles; sea power blockades.
No, we have not returned to myth. Everywhere we look in history we see this struggle between Land and Sea. For instance:
Persia-Greeks
Sparta-Athens
Rome-Carthage
Now, do not think of Rome as only a land-power. It was after the defeat of Carthage that they started referring to the mediterranean as Mare Nostrum (our sea). In some sense the Romans chose a new form of historical existence. And long after defeating Carthage declining Rome "saw its domination of the seas snatched by the Vandals, the Saracens, the Vikings, and the Normans." But sea-powers at this time were not merely pirates and raiders. The Byzantine Empire is singled out for high praise. He calls it a Katechon(!), i.e., the restrainer of The Antichrist, (see Thessalonians 2) for holding back Islam and, by this, even protecting the Roman Church.
The last sea power Schmitt speaks of here is Venice. Those who think Schmitt is contemptuous of all sea powers should read this. Venice is for Schmitt a preview of the British Empire: great wealth, diplomatic superiority in maneuvering others powers to fight its wars, and an aristocracy tolerant enough to avoid internal division while open to heterodox religious and political views, even offering asylum to political emigrants.
Now, Venice enacted rituals too; most famously the sposalizio del mare (marriage to the sea). Each year the Doge would board an 'official vessel of the Republic' and throw a ring into the sea. Even today Venice attracts romantics, but its great age (Schmitt says from 1000 to 1500) is long gone. Our author does not want to "darken the brightness of such splendor." But he closes this section wondering what the Adriatic and Mediterranean are compared to all the oceans of the world.
And so we see that it is not only geopolitics, human nature, and the friend-enemy distinction that is to be the object of our inquiry. We are to remain concerned with the mythical too.

Four.
Quoting Ernst Kapp our author indicates that one could divide history into three stages.
1. The fluvial culture of the ancient middle east, from Mesopotamia to Egypt.
2. The thalassic era from classical antiquity to the Mediterranean middle ages.
3. Oceanic civilization. The discovery of America and the rise of ocean-spanning empires.
Schmitt will categorize this as river, closed sea, ocean. Schmitt will archly note "of 'oceanic' civilization, the carriers [...] are the Germanic peoples." Again, Schmitt doesn't simply despise sea-power.
Now Schmitt will conclude his discussion of the Venetians. Venice came to a halt at the second stage. They were a 'terrestrial people' that only married the Sea. It was not their element. Schmitt notes two limitations on Venice's power. First the limitation that haunts all Sea Powers. It is difficult "to exert one’s domination over a continent merely by means of a fleet." The other point is that Venice lacked innovation in seafaring warfare. Venice, at Lepanto in 1571, was essentially fighting the same type of battle that the fleets of Anthony and Octavian fought at Actium 1500 years earlier. Innovation would fall to the Dutch, and then the English. And there our current history begins.

Five.
But it begins with Myth; that of whales and whalers. They are images of each other. How? Well, after calling the whale a 'monster', Schmitt says of it that "a warm-blooded giant has been handed over to the element without having been physiologically intended for it." Both whalers and whales are terrestrial animals that have turned themselves into creatures of the Sea. Are they both monsters? Also, note that the nature of hunting has changed.
"And the hunters of this fish were in the times that concern us here, that is, from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, genuine hunters in a grand style, and not mere 'catchers.' This detail is not lacking in importance for our story." Schmitt points out that both the nature of whaling and warfare has changed thanks to technology. The whalers are no longer the heros they were 500 years ago. We infer that the same can be said of sea powers; like whalers, they have been given an unnatural advantage due to advances in technology. Thus they are both now doubly 'monsters.'
This section ends with Schmitt pointing out that the sixteenth century had two different type of hunters. In Russia, fur trappers who led the way into Siberia. And our whale hunters.

Six.
A new technology appears around this time too. The Dutch invent a new smaller square sail that allows for more mobility by better utilizing the wind. A new ship, the man of war, appeared too. It was a "sailing ship equipped with cannons that fired broadside salvos at the enemy." Thus the nature of sea battle changes too.
Many European nations had a "part in the great epic of the discovery of the new Earth, that led to the domination of the world by the Europeans." And not only the contemporary colonizers. Germans made maps. Italians 'perfected' the compass. Oh yes, and the English are involved too.

Seven.
Pirates! Schmitt is mostly concerned with English Pirates because of England's struggle with Spain. The Pirate Era "lasted approximately a century and a half, from 1550 to 1713, or said differently, from the beginning of the struggle carried on by the Protestant powers against the world power of Catholic Spain, and until the Peace of Utrecht." (Note that Schmitt is a Catholic.) Of course there have always been pirates. But "the privateers of the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries [...] played a considerable part in history." Now, that part, whether carried out by pirate or privateer (with their Royal Commissions!) was usually aimed at Catholic Spain, but it was only a moment. It passes.

Eight.
But that moment put little England onto the road of world power. Before Elizabeth I they were ''sheep-breeders'; after... 'predatory capitalists'! Schmitt underlines the 'corsair-capitalist' nature of this period in English history by telling the story of the Killigrews of Cornwall, who were gentlemen pirates. Schmitt intends us to understand that this was 'normal' at the time. "For the first fourteen years of Elizabeth’s reign the largest part of the English navy was actively engaged in piracy and illegal transactions..."
Myth: a "thirteenth-century English prophecy: 'The lion’s cubs will turn into the fishes of the sea.'"
Schmitt concludes thusly:
-It was only in the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries that this nation of shepherds recast itself into a sea-roaming nation of privateers, into 'children of the sea.'-
The point is that British supremacy begins doubly in crime. First, and obviously, as Pirates. Secondly, as monstrous 'children of the sea'.

Nine.
The other European powers chose, however unwittingly, either to be land powers, or were bested by English arms or trade on the high seas. The Portuguese, Spanish, French and Dutch all eventually were surpassed by the English. Thus "Spain and Portugal, for instance, preserved their huge overseas possessions, but lost control of the seas and the communication routes." The Netherlands were "continentalized". The French? When In 1672 "the French king sacked Colbert, his great secretary of trade and of the navy, the choice in favor of the land element became irreversible."
Schmitt explains that English domination cannot be reduced to the failure of others. Or fully illuminated by comparisons to earlier maritime powers:
-The case of England is in itself unique. Its specificity, its incomparable character has to do with the fact that England underwent the elemental metamorphosis at a moment in history that was altogether unlike any other, and also in a way shared by none of the earlier maritime powers. She truly turned her collective existence seawards and centered it on the sea element. That enabled her to win not only countless wars and naval battles but also something else, and in fact, infinitely more—a revolution. A revolution of sweeping scope, that of the planetary space.-

Ten.
"What is a space revolution?"
What Schmitt is after is certainly not the concept of space given by various sciences. (Such as physics, geometry, psychology and biology.) Not even philosophy is a help. But history rolls on nevertheless:
-Each time the forces of history cause a new breach, the surge of new energies brings new lands and new seas into the visual field of human awareness, the spaces of historical existence undergo a corresponding change. Hence, new criteria appear, alongside of new dimensions of political and historical activity, new sciences, new social systems; nations are born or reborn.-
I want to underline this. What "new criteria" means is that, before the 'breach', the future is largely unknowable for all observers. Schmitt would add that the divisions between land & sea, friend and enemy will remain; but I believe he would concede that neither their shape nor content can be known in advance.
"Actually, all important changes in history more often than not imply a new perception of space." Schmitt gives three examples of Spatial Revolution.

Eleven.
1. The conquests of Alexander the Great. Hellenism: Aristarchus taught that the earth revolved around the sun. Euclid. Heron of Alexandria and his inventions. Eratoethenes knew of the equator and taught that the earth was round. But all this was no revolution of 'planetary space', that is, no knowledge of the ocean.
2. The first century of the Roman Empire. The northwest came into view: Gaul, Britain, the Atlantic. Conquests, civil wars, and trade established a 'common political destiny' from Spain and Germany, to Illyria, Syria, and Africa. Persia in the East, Arabia to the South were part of this World. "Agrippa’s map of the world and Strabo’s geography are evidence of this spatial expansion." Schmitt quotes Seneca:
-The Indian drinks of the icy Araxes.
The Persians quaff the Elbe and the Rhine.
An age will come in the far-off centuries,
When Ocean will loosen the bonds of things,
And the whole broad Earth will be revealed,
When Thetis will disclose new worlds.
And Thule will no longer be the bound.-
A prophesy of globalization!
3. But Rome fell, and the world got smaller. The 'continentalization' of europe happened thanks largely to the loss of the eastern trade to the Arabs. And then the Crusades happened. This was the beginning of trade and a communication network that was a nascent 'world economy'. I do not think that, given the provincialist torpor that was shaken up by the crusades, it would be outrageous to suggest that european progress began here!

Twelve.
But none of these are comparable to the planetary revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Beginning with the discovery of the americas and then sailing around the world, a new 'global consciousness' was born, first in europe, and then, inexorably, the rest of the world. Schmitt calls it "the first, complete, space revolution on a planetary scale". (I think that 'space' s/b translated as spatial, here and elsewhere.) It had repercussions far beyond political economy with its colonies and trade. It wiped out not only peoples traditional everyday conceptions of the world but also those of cosmology and astronomy. Schmitt will single out the notion of the infinite void. After the development from Copernicus to Newton, the stars are "masses of matter, [that] move while the forces of attraction and repulsion balance each other in an infinite void, in virtue of the laws of gravitation." An entirely materialist cosmology reigned. The traditional 'horror vacui' was a thing of the past. Aufklärungen like Voltaire "were taking pride in the very idea, scientifically demonstrable, of a world placed inside an infinite void."
A revolution like this is no mere emendation of geography. Vikings and Basque whalers had been to the 'new world' before Columbus, but nothing came of it. "A space revolution presupposes more than just setting foot on land previously unknown. It assumes the transformation of the notion of space at all levels and in all the aspects of human existence." Examples? Renaissance perspectival painting and architecture and sculpture are all witness to a change in our understanding of space. There were revolutions in music and on the stage too. What today we all think of as 'globalization' began here.

Thirteen.
What is a spatial order?
-To talk of the constitution of a country or a continent is to talk of its fundamental order, of its nomos. The true, the authentic, rests essentially upon distinct, spatial delimitations. It presupposes clear dimensions, a precise division of the planet. The beginning of every great era coincides with an extensive territorial appropriation.-
What historical 'modes of production' are to Marx, historical 'spatial orders' (Nomoi) are to Schmitt. They are the key to understanding history and large-scale historical change.
The spatial revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries changed not only Europe, but the world. At first, colonialism was justified because it was spreading christianity, later because it was spreading (the european conception of) civilization. In this process, a european christian civil law was born. To be considered civilized one had to accept that civil law. Of course, european nations in this period did not behave civilly towards each other. There were terrible wars fought between them. However, for the period there is, "the dominant fact: the collective conquest of the New World by the Europeans." European civil law was both the delineation and implementation of a new spatial order, a new Nomos of the Earth. Schmitt says that the 'age of discovery' is the era of european territorial conquest. He ends the section with Heraclitus:
"war brings people together, while law divides them."
What is Nomos? In one of the very few notes in this text Schmitt says the term (the Greek noun nomos derives from the verb nemein) consists of three meanings:
1. Taking, seizure, appropriation.
2. Division, repartition, distribution.
3. Use, exploit, produce, consume.

Fourteen.
How are these conquests related to law? Well in the beginning, all european powers did was arrive at some new territory, have a ceremony, read a proclamation, perhaps leave a symbolic object, and go. Later, these claims were naturally contested. So long as it was Portugal and Spain, disputes could be settled by the Pope. As early as 1493(!), the Papal Bull Inter caetera gave all the new lands 100 leagues west of the Azores to Spain. Later (1494), Portugal and Spain agreed that all the new lands east of the line belonged to Portugal. Of all this Schmitt says that the, "dividing line traced by the Pope in 1493 marked the beginning of the struggle for the new fundamental order, for the new nomos of the planet."
As one might guess, other european powers (the French, the Dutch, the English, eg) were unimpressed by this. When some of these powers became Protestant, "the struggle for the ownership of the new Earth turned into a struggle between Reformation and Counter-Reformation." I would argue that the rise of a new Nomos always includes the rise of new religions or, at the very least, new religious sects. I am not sure Schmitt would agree.

Continued as Comment...

[Sara Hasanova · Rating 4 out of 5]

99 sayfa olmasına rağmen çok ağır bi kitaptı bence. Akla gelebilecek her şeyin özeti gibi bi şey bu. Din, mitoloji, edebiyat, sanat, tarih, bilim, keşifler çağı, ekonomi, siyaset felaefe ve nice alana bir cümle ya da en iyi halde bi paragrafla değinilmiş. Bu yüzden sağlam bi altyapıya sahip olarak okumakta fayda var bence. Nitekim çoğu konuyu anlamadığım oldu.
Çeviride ise sorun var bence. Ağdalı bir dil kullanılmış, arapça ve osmanlıca çok fazla kelime vardı. Yer yer metinden koparıyor insanı. Okumalarda sevmediğim bi şeydir.

[NanoCyborg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Neat little book, I have to give it another read through though to get what I want out of it.

[Emilio Puga · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un pequeño clásico. Actualísimo.

[Your_Average_Magical_Girls_Fan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un must assoluto per gli amanti della geopolitica.

[Paul O'Leary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read the new Telos edition of this work with introductory essays. Apparently this edition hasn't made it to Goodreads yet. This is a long essay-most of Schmitt's books aren't much longer than essays when subtracting his signature elaborate apparatuses-with virtually no footnotes by the author-plenty by the translator, though. Schmitt is at his most whimsical here; his sources appear to be few, yet his imagination expansive. His discussion of piracy may be almost completely drawn from a single book by Gosse. For a writer as thorough and detailed as Schmitt this is an unusual installment in his peculiar oeuvre. Melville is regaled as chronicler of a whale hunter age that Schmitt clearly fancies. Fancy, though of an extremely well-educated jurist, is still just fancy. Schmitt's prejudice against England borders on the entertaining as he more or less reduces English seafaring before the nineteenth century to the activities of petty criminals; real advancements in seafaring mechanics, theory, and skill therein are made by virtually every nation, except England. This was written in 1942, so there was a war going on. Safe to say that prejudices, personal and ideological, abound. Included as well is an ample helping of anti-semitism-especially in the '42 version. Schmitt gradually unfurls his legal/political philosophy of elemental spaces, the so called spatial revolutions, beginning with land/matter, moving on to sea/water, and lastly air finds itself in its own spatial revolution. But Schmitt adds quickly a fourth in place of the third, as the conquest of the air really entails the dominance of the machine and this really is a/the final? spatial revolution of fire. Not a cheery note to be sure but many former German Nazis began to sound pessimistic philosophies in '42. The ideas expressed in this book have continuing influence in some strange quarters of the world. Alexander Dugin took much of his structure from Mackinder to built some of his grander geopolitical theories, but Carl Schmitt seems to be a most important figure for him. Although one does wonder how much Putin takes seriously/can take seriously schemes to control the World Island. Almost anything else Schmitt wrote before or after this is more rigorous and disciplined, but this is Schmitt as bedtime fabulist. You be the judge. Certainly Schmitt himself didn't shy away from doing so.....

[Mateo Pereyra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hablar de esta obra como un mero libro de teoría política significaría una siplificación absurda. Este LIBRAZO contiene una de las últimas veces en las que el pensamiento occidental se ha animado a proponer un mundo y una cosmovisión correlativa en lugar de resignarse y recurrir a la atomización contemporánea del conocimiento. Pensar en la historia de la humanidad como la historia de la relación del ser humano con sus sucesivos espacios vitales importa mística a raudales.
ESTE LIBRO PREDIJO GODZILLA VS KING KONG

[Ian Ghitarroni]

Do it for Rebord

[Ludovica Benedetta · Rating 4 out of 5]

"LAND UND MEER": SCHMITT IN CHIAVE MODERNA
Nel 1942, isolato a Berlino in piena guerra mondiale, Carl Schmitt scrisse - per la figlia Anima e poi per la pressa tipografica - il saggio "Land und Meer", portato in italiano come "Terra e Mare" da Adelphi.

L'opera gira attorno alla considerazione storiografica per cui "la storia del mondo è la storia della lotta delle potenze marittime contro le potenze terrestri e delle potenze terrestri contro le potenze marittime", lasciando subito intuire le influenze mackinderiane. In realtà, però, Schmitt ragiona in termini metastorici.

Schmitt cerca di tracciare una sintetica storia elementale dell'uomo. Gli elementi schmittiani  sono simboli dell'ambiente e dello spazio in cui l'uomo si muove, e da cui è influenzato. Tuttavia, come precisa il pensatore tedesco,  l'uomo ha una sua potenza storica e non è, in virtù di questa, determinato. In altre parole, Schmitt rivendica per l'uomo la capacità di superare le costrizioni ambientali grazie al proprio ingegno.

Sebbene l'uomo sia un animale terrestre e, dunque, naturalmente legato all'elemento terra, Schmitt riporta testimonianze di società che vivevano sul mare e per cui la terraferma era solo il confine del proprio spazio esistenziale talassico.

Ma per Schmitt non basta essere giunti a dominare i mari, come i Romani, né aver fondato la propria potenza sulla talassocrazia, come i Veneziani. Appartenere all'elemento acqua è una condizione più profonda, esistenziale e prettamente oceanica. Il tipo umano che incarna per primo tale condizione è quello del cacciatore di balene, e in seconda battuta del pirata e del corsaro. Quelli che Schmitt definisce "gli schiumatori del mare" , che in Età Moderna realizzano le grandi esplorazioni geografiche, unificando per la prima volta il mondo.

Siccome Schmitt ritiene che la coscienza del proprio spazio influisca profondamente sulla visione del mondo, ogni nuova acquisizione di terra o mare alla coscienza collettiva umana può portare a un mutamento nel pensare lo spazio stesso.


Con l'egemonia globale della talassocrazia britannica si ha l'incarnazione massima dell'uomo elementalmente di mare: l'Impero Britannico non si compone tanto delle terre che controlla, semplici avamposti, bensì del mare stesso.

Con la rivoluzione industriale, però, Schmitt individua una nuova svolta epocale, poiché il battello a vapore è una macchina, il cui guidatore deve manovrare. Non ci sono più navigatori, ma macchinisti.

Di lì a poco si arriva all'aereo, con cui l'uomo si libra nei cieli. È l'inizio dell'era dell'elemento aria? Per Schmitt, in realtà, è più l'elemento fuoco a dominare. Il fuoco della combustione dei carburanti che animano le macchine. Il fuoco che piove dai cieli, che infiamma l'Europa e l'Asia nella Seconda Guerra Mondiale, grande doglia che annuncia l'avvento della nuova era.

[Mathew Madsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

True to its name, Land and Sea offers a telling of history through the lens of land based nations and sea based nations. The idea is that where a nation focuses and derives its power (either by land or by sea) has significant implications for how they develop and for geopolitical interaction/conflict. Some of it's a little out there, but there are some excellent ideas here that are relevant to everything from US/China/Russia geopolitics to the Musk/Bezos/Branson obsession with space exploration.

My favorite part is the idea of a "spacial revolution." Schmitt suggests that major episodes of progress or realignment generally correspond to changes in the structure or understanding of "space," broadly defined:

Every time when new lands and seas enter the field of vision of human collective consciousness by a new thrust of historical forces, by an unleashing of new energies, the spaces of historical existence also change. Then there emerge new measures and directions of political-historical activity, new sciences, new orders, new life for new or reborn peoples. The expansion can be so deep and so surprising that not only quantities and measurements, not only the outermost human horizon, but even the structure of the concept of space itself is altered. Then one may speak of a spacial revolution. But a transformation of the sense of space is generally a part of each great historical change. That is the authentic core of the encompassing political, economic, and cultural transformation that then transpires.

According to this theory, progress is borne on the frontier and without a physical, spacial frontier to impel new discovery, stagnation can set in. The New World. The American west. Outer space. The moon. With each of these frontiers came new possibilities and new dreams. The obvious question is where will our next spacial revolution come from? The natural answer is a return to the moon and beyond. But if not outer space itself, it's unclear where else we will find a new understanding of "space" that would fit Schmitt's thesis.

[ilovecomics · Rating 4 out of 5]

Saggio affascinante, che procede più per intuizioni che per accumulo di dati e che rivisita la storia del mondo dal punto di vista del contrasto tra terra e mare, per Schmitt elementi dominanti nello sviluppo delle culture e delle società. La storia del mondo è la storia della lotta delle potenze marittime contro le potenze terrestri.

Scritto a Berlino nel 1942, il saggio indaga in particolare l’avvento dell’età moderna quando, tra ‘500 e ‘600, lo spazio percepito dall’uomo viene sconvolto dall’effetto combinato della scoperta del Nuovo Mondo e dei progressi della scienza (Copernico, Keplero, Newton) che restituiscono all’uomo uno spazio immenso, sulla Terra e al di fuori da essa.

Gli avanzamenti nelle tecniche di navigazione consentono ora di affrontare l’oceano, verso la parte sconosciuta del mondo e navigatori avventurosi, pirati, cacciatori di balene saranno i protagonisti di questa nuova avventura sul mare.

Nel ‘600 saranno gli inglesi ad intuire che questa rivoluzione spaziale può essere sfruttata per imporre un dominio basato non sulle conquiste terrestri, ma sul predominio nei mari. Durante il regno di Elisabetta I si creano le condizioni della svolta: la neonata Compagnia delle Indie Orientali, i corsari al servizio della Regina, una rivoluzione nelle tecniche di costruzione delle imbarcazioni che porterà l’Inghilterra a sconfiggere l’Invincibile Armata spagnola nel 1588. Per tre secoli gli inglesi saranno gli indiscussi dominatori dei mari, fino alla fine dell’Ottocento, quando, con l’avvento dell’era industriale, una nuova rivoluzione spaziale si imporrà.

Utilissima la postfazione di Franco Volpi che contestualizza il pensiero di Schmitt nei suoi rapporti con il potere nazionalsocialista in Germania. Intellettuale affine al regime, inquisito a Norimberga, venne poi prosciolto, essendo riuscito a tracciare una netta linea di separazione tra il proprio pensiero e l’ideologia nazionalsocialista.

[Facufigueroa_ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nicolaus Sombart llego a decír una vez de este texto de Schmitt que era "el mas bello", yo secundo con dicha afirmación aunque parcialmente. Creo que es un texto que desafia al lector porque no solo esta lleno de ideas y reflexiones, sino que guarda en si mismo una reflexión alucinante sobre los elementos que constituyen lo que Schmitt reconoce como "la revolución espacial", estos elementos Schmitt los identifica como dos en un inicio: el agua y la tierra. El agua es representado por el monstruo biblíco del leviatan y la tierra por el behemont(monstruo biblíco que aparece en el libro de Job) a estos dos elementos según Schmitt cabe la teoría de añadirse un tercero después de la primera guerra mundial: el aire. El alemán vuelve sobre las teorías metafisícas y fisícas acerca del origen de la vida y del mundo planteado por los filósofos del arje como heraclito que planteaba que el todo se constituía por el fuego, tales consideraba que lo era por el agua, anaximenes por el apeiron,etc. En este recorrido historíco Schmitt resalta la importancia del mar en la conquista internacional maritima y en el dominio inglés durante el siglo XIX post derrota de Napoleon. A la vez, resalta que este dominio inglés venía desde mucho antes con la aparición de los piratas y de los corsarios. Que si bien son casí lo mismo, su única diferencia radica en que uno tiene un titúlo legal y juridíco para navegar en mares(el corsario) y el otro no.
Este libro es maravilloso, leanlo pero sabiendo que se van a encontrar una ensalada de conceptos(muchas veces complejos).
Me quedo con la reflexión de que diversas formas de espacio son diversas formas de vida, el espacio que comparte un campesino le hace ver a la ciudad de manera diferente a la que pueda tener un habitante de la ciudad.

[Legens · Rating 3 out of 5]

A curious book. It begins with mythology (maybe to get the attention of Schmitt's twelve-year-old daughter, to whom the book is allegedly told) and then proceeds into a broad discussion of the history of man and the sea. Schmitt divides the relationship of cultures to water into potamic (river-based, i.e. ancient Egypt or Babylonia), thalassic (sea-based, like the ancient Greece or medieval Venice), and finally oceanic (not confined to inland seas, like the Vikings or western Europe from the 16th century on). Shifts between those coincide with economic, political, and cultural shifts (goods flow into the ascendant Europe over the oceans, England becomes the premier power, and the Reformation sets in). At the time of writing, Schmitt sees a new spatial revolution: Air travel and the communication revolution of telegraphy, radio, and telephony will be as momentous as the shift toward the ocean. Consequently, Schmitt assumes that a new global order (a nomos, as he calls it) will be formed. But what will it look like, he asks?
It goes without saying for Schmitt, but especially in this book originally published at the height of World War II: It's anglophobic and has a few antisemitic remarks (even though the 1954 edition which I read is, as far as I know, already mostly cleaned up in the latter regard).

[Antonio · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Terra e mare", Carl Schmitt, 1942.

La storia del mondo "è la storia della lotta delle potenze marittime contro le potenze terrestri e delle potenze terrestri contro le potenze marittime."

Con queste parole si apre il capitolo III di questo libro.
L'essenza di questo piccolo saggio è questa: la storia del mondo rielaborata alla luce di una "opposizione fondamentale" tra mare e terra, visti non più come semplici elementi, ma come "componenti dei segreti motori della storia".

Schmitt, in poco più di un centinaio di pagine e con incredibile abilità, ripercorre e ricostruisce secoli di Storia umana svelandone "la trama invisibile" e giungendo ad approdare all'evento decisio: una vera e propria "rivoluzione spaziale planetaria".
La conquista del mare, appunto; e la nascita degli Imperi marittimi e coloniali (olandesi ed inglesi su tutti).

Un affascintante viaggio, al confine tra "speculazione ed immaginazione", dove si mischiano interpretazione storica, teoria politica, mitografia, esoterismo e teologia.
In alcuni punti, forse, superato. In altri, così moderno da poter esser stato scritto lo scorso anno (tutta la parte sui rapporti tra Inghilterra e Stati Uniti).

Consigliato.

"Sono un avventuriero intellettuale... Così si formano pensieri e conoscenze."
(Carl Schmitt)

[A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Carl Schmitt presenteert in dit werk een wereldhistorische schets van twee basis (of elementaire) concepten: land en zee. Het essay werd geschreven voor zijn 12-jarige dochter en is dus zeer toegankelijk geschreven. Wie zich niet meteen wilt wagen aan zijn magnum opus 'Nomos der Erde' kan met dit essay beginnen om een basis mee te kregen van Schmittiaanse concepten en geschiedschrijving. Tegen het einde van het essay stelt hij zich de vraag naar de nieuwe orde van de aarde (nomos) van de 20ste eeuw: "De oude nomos ... valt weg en met hem een heel systeem van traditionele maten, normen en proporties, Maar het komende is daarom toch niet alleen maar mateloosheid of nomos-vijandig Niets. Ook in de grimmige worsteling van oude en nieuwe krachten ontstaan er rechtvaardige doseringen en vormen er zich zinvolle proporties. Ook hier zijn er goden die heersen. Groot is hun maat"

[Maia Mindel · Rating 5 out of 5]

surprisingly despite being one of schmitt's lesser known works, it's the most personally consequential one - his concept of grossbaum, roughly meaning sphere of influence, was taken to mean lebensraum, and he was almost sent to no-shit-for-real trial at nuremberg. instead, he was merely banned from philosophy and academia for life. the book is basically a nazi history of globalization, sort of the world is flat by way of mein kampf. but schmitt also buries a fundamental conflict: between the organized, rational state of england and america, and the personalistic, ideological state of the axis powers. more relevant than ever

[Damilola Ojikutu · Rating 3 out of 5]

I find this to be very distinct in that it engages in old British civilizational myths, rationalizes them and tries to explain it in terms of the development of both maritime and land powers. I read this with the idea that it would explore more of the reasons for the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact on the side of Germans and while it does lack in substance on that subject it is an interesting conception of how British maritime power emerged and about the importance of trade and naval power expanded through history.

[Melissa Giannetta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ci sono forse solo due modi di considerare la verità: come un lume, che è luminoso e che si irradia, e come un’ombra, che è tenebrosa e che dilaga, inghiottendo ogni luce. Questo libro irradia tenebre, allontana il senso di una storia del mondo dalla cronologia, la ripercorre come una lotta tra elementi, si sofferma sulla natura del Nomos e sul destino dello spazio, ma in definitiva svela un mistero: “La verità è ciò che non si può e non si deve mai esprimere” (p. 136).

[Acid Dreams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro corto y sencillo pero con una gran pretensión: explicar el desarrollo de la humanidad desde sus primeros asentamientos hasta la actualidad mediante el conflicto entre la Tierra y el Mar. Schmitt logra sintetizar su hipótesis en menos de 130 páginas, con un estilo fluido y ameno. Lo considero un buen libro para meterse a leer historia universal.

[Comparsa · Rating 1 out of 5]

“Un anacronismo, nel migliore dei casi un interessante pezzo da museo.”
Questa citazione, tratta dal volume, definisce il commento a questa pubblicazione che, a tratti, sembra mal celare una imperterrita invidia del tridente (di Nettuno) e manifesta una speculazione (e dei postulati) a dir poco azzardata, quando non completamente sballata.
È breve, almeno questo...

[al · Rating 1 out of 5]

Read for a class. Did not enjoy. Couple bars in the latter portion and I get the framing but found it uninteresting. Also he’s a Nazi which tends to put a damper on most reading/ life experiences (understatement of the year). But I’ll be damned if this doesn’t count towards my reading goal of the year.

[Pedro Pirata]

Lindo librito que reflexiona sobre las relaciones entre el ser humano, la tierra y el mar y las consecuencias históricas que los cambios en estas relaciones han producido. Una tesis interesante sobre la historia occidental (más que universal, como se propone en el texto) y la centralidad de las relaciones con los elementos.

[CyberMonk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ich hat erwartet zu mehr. Aber es ist intressant buch.

[Amber Manning · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dude was a Nazi sympathizer and the book's treatment of Jewish mysticism is terrifyingly biased and also lazy scholarship.

[Kardelen Müzeyyen · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 YILDIZ VERMEK İSTİYORUM BUÇUKLU YILDIZ UPDATE ACİL