How to Make a Socialist Public Lawyer Disappear

Abstract

Eighty-six years after his death in exile from Nazi Germany, the socialist public lawyer Hermann Heller received his most extensive commemoration and engagement yet in the English language. The first-time translation in 2019 of what is often regarded as the magnum opus of his brief scholarly career, the 1927 book Sovereignty, allows much of Heller’s insight and erudition to come through, but very little of his views on political economy. Moreover, David Dyzenhaus's quixotic new presentation of Heller’s thought - as a grand defense (almost apotheosis) of international law as such - has almost nothing to do with his actual arguments.