Abstract

In this paper, the theories of the civitas maxima (universal state) in the work of Christian Wolff (1679–1754) and Michael Christoph Hanov (1695–1773) are investigated. Topics are the layers of international law, the concept and constitution of the universal state, utopian elements, the ontological status of the universal state, conversion of other states, and migration. As a critical counterpart, the idea of nation is explored in these authors as well as in the political theories of romanticism, namely in Adam Müller (1779–1829) and Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768–1834).