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Visibility was the determining factor in the development of modern fortification during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. According to the German political theorist Carl Schmitt, the preservation of the modern sovereign state, which emerged during the same period, requires a vigilance (surveillance) in which McEwen sees the perfect mirror image of the principles of fortification design. The categories of friend and enemy defined the modern state, according to Schmitt, whose thought has enjoyed a revival since his death in 1985, especially in post 9/11 politics. The same categories of friend and enemy were basic criteria for the design of fortifications during the period when the modern state was first theorized by Machiavelli, Jean Bodin and Thomas Hobbes, the three thinkers Schmitt claimed as the “founders of (his) discipline.” With Schmitt as a guide, this essay examines the spaces of early modern fortification to discover how visuality has shaped the space of modern politics.
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