Gopal Balakrishnan

Gopal Balakrishnan has written extensively on modern European intellectual history, political theory, philosophy, and economic history. He began his intellectual career at Cornell University. There, he received a College Scholar B.A. in 1989. He continued his course of studies where he completed a Ph.D. in Modern European History in 1998. Subsequently, he was honored with the Jean Monnet Fellowship at the European University Institute in Florence and the Harper Schmidt Fellowship at the University of Chicago. From the outset of his career, his work has displayed a vast, interdisciplinary erudition spanning the fields of history, political theory, philosophy, and economics. This breadth of interests formed the basis of his doctoral research, which evolved into his groundbreaking first book, "The Enemy: An Intellectual Portrait of Carl Schmitt." This work provided a meticulous analysis of Schmitt’s political thought conceived as a series of responses to the crises of the German and European state systems from 1919 to 1945.  philosophy and its profound impact on 20th-century European politics, establishing him as a formidable thinker in political theory circles. This work presented the first comprehensive account of Schmitt’s work in any language.  A collection of his essays, "Antagonistics: Capitalism and Power in an Age of War," came out subsequently offering reflections on the history of the interstate system and the future of warfare, the significance of Machiavelli as a theorist of the founding of new orders, of De Tocqueville as a conservative critic of democracy, and on the European origins of identity politics.   As an editor, Balakrishnan assembled influential collections of contributions from leading scholars on nationalism and the new world order of globalization entitled "Mapping the Nation" and "Debating Empire."  More recently, Balakrishnan has been working on a reconstruction of Karl Marx's economic thought that identifies its concealed conceptual structure, making its historical and logical assumptions more apparent and thus opening up new questions regarding its adequacy as an account of the structure and history of capitalism.   His forthcoming collaboration with SS African Mercury highlights his penchant for intervening in current intellectual debates. Balakrishnan’s contributions to this new journal aim to change the terms of left-wing discourse by taking on board the most intelligent perspectives from across the political spectrum.  Balakrishnan participates in a number of study groups and private seminars on topics as varied as classical political economy, Marxist writing on the Graeco-Roman world, and the Bible in its historical context. Here he seeks to inspire others with the spirit of pure intellectual inquiry, free from current fashion and ideological pieties.