Leo Strauss, the Straussians, and the American Regime PDF Download

Author: Kenneth L. Deutsch
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780847686926
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 474

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Book Description
Responding to volatile criticisms frequently leveled at Leo Strauss and those he influenced, the prominent contributors to this volume demonstrate the profound influence that Strauss and his students have exerted on American liberal democracy and contemporary political thought. By stressing the enduring vitality of classic books and by articulating the theoretical and practical flaws of relativism and historicism, the contributors argue that Strauss and the Straussians have identified fundamental crises of modernity and liberal democracy. This book emphasizes the broad range of Strauss's influence, from literary criticism to constitutional thought, and it denies the existence of a monolithic Straussian political orthodoxy. Both critics and supporters of Strauss' thought are included. All political theorists interested in Strauss's extraordinary impact on political thought will want to read this book.

Author: Anne Norton
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300109733
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
This provocative book examines the teachings of political theorist Leo Strauss and the ways in which they have been appropriated, or misappropriated, by senior policymakers.

Author: Paul E. Gottfried
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139505483
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
This book offers an original interpretation of the achievement of Leo Strauss, stressing how his ideas and followers reshaped the American conservative movement. The conservative movement that reached out to Strauss and his legacy was extremely fluid and lacked a self-confident leadership. Conservative activists and journalists felt a desperate need for academic acceptability, which they thought Strauss and his disciples would furnish. They also became deeply concerned with the problem of 'value relativism', which self-described conservatives thought Strauss had effectively addressed. But until recently, neither Strauss nor his disciples have considered themselves to be 'conservatives'. Contrary to another misconception, Straussians have never wished to convert Americans to ancient political ideals and practices, except in a very selective rhetorical fashion. Strauss and his disciples have been avid champions of American modernity, and 'timeless' values as interpreted by Strauss and his followers often look starkly contemporary.

Author: Leo Strauss
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022622645X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
In this classic work, Leo Strauss examines the problem of natural right and argues that there is a firm foundation in reality for the distinction between right and wrong in ethics and politics. On the centenary of Strauss's birth, and the fiftieth anniversary of the Walgreen Lectures which spawned the work, Natural Right and History remains as controversial and essential as ever. "Strauss . . . makes a significant contribution towards an understanding of the intellectual crisis in which we find ourselves . . . [and] brings to his task an admirable scholarship and a brilliant, incisive mind."—John H. Hallowell, American Political Science Review Leo Strauss (1899-1973) was the Robert Maynard Hutchins Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in Political Science at the University of Chicago.

Author: Shadia B. Drury
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780333772294
Category : Conservatism
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
In 1980, Ronald Reagan was elected President of the United States for his first term and the conservative revolution that was slowly developing in the United States finally emerged in full-throated roar. Who provoked the conservative revolution? In this work, Shadia Drury provides an answer to the question as she looks at the work of Leo Strauss, a seemingly reclusive German-Jewish emigrant and scholar, who was one of the most influential individuals in the conservative movement, a man widely seen as the godfather of the Republican party's failed Contract With America.

Author: Aggie Hirst
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113504368X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
The political philosophy of Leo Strauss has been the subject of significant scholarly and media attention in recent years, particularly in the context of the decision to invade Iraq in 2003. Allegations that a group of Strauss-inspired Neo-conservatives intervened in the foreign policy establishment of the US in order to realise the policy of 'regime change' began to emerge soon after the invasion, and unanswered questions remain a decade later. This book addresses these claims, focusing specifically on a group of Straussians active in the spheres of intelligence production, think tanks, and the media during the period from the 9/11 attacks to the invasion in 2003. Such an examination is intended not simply to identify and expose their activities promoting the policy of 'regime change' in Iraq during this period, but also to challenge them and the Straussian logics underpinning them. Utilising the thought of Jacques Derrida, the book enacts a deconstructive challenge to Strauss’ political philosophy which unsettles the fundamental assumptions it relies upon. In doing so, it exposes the securitising imperative underpinning Straussian thought and the Straussian interventions. It thereby simultaneously addresses crucial issues in political theory and contemporary foreign policy studies, while asserting that these dimensions of international politics can and should be dealt with in conjunction with each other. This book would be of interest to students and scholars of Global Politics, Political Theory, Security Studies and US Foreign Policy, and those outside the academy interested in Neo-conservatism and the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Author: Mark Lilla
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 1590179021
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 169

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Book Description
We don’t understand the reactionary mind. As a result, argues Mark Lilla in this timely book, the ideas and passions that shape today’s political dramas are unintelligible to us. The reactionary is anything but a conservative. He is as radical and modern a figure as the revolutionary, someone shipwrecked in the rapidly changing present, and suffering from nostalgia for an idealized past and an apocalyptic fear that history is rushing toward catastrophe. And like the revolutionary his political engagements are motivated by highly developed ideas. Lilla begins with three twentieth-century philosophers—Franz Rosenzweig, Eric Voegelin, and Leo Strauss—who attributed the problems of modern society to a break in the history of ideas and promoted a return to earlier modes of thought. He then examines the enduring power of grand historical narratives of betrayal to shape political outlooks since the French Revolution, and shows how these narratives are employed in the writings of Europe’s right-wing cultural pessimists and Maoist neocommunists, American theoconservatives fantasizing about the harmony of medieval Catholic society and radical Islamists seeking to restore a vanished Muslim caliphate. The revolutionary spirit that inspired political movements across the world for two centuries may have died out. But the spirit of reaction that rose to meet it has survived and is proving just as formidable a historical force. We live in an age when the tragicomic nostalgia of Don Quixote for a lost golden age has been transformed into a potent and sometimes deadly weapon. Mark Lilla helps us to understand why.

Author: Michael P. Zuckert
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022613587X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
This critical study of the influential political theorist dispels popular myths and reveals the inner logic of his varied and notoriously complex writings. Political theorist Leo Strauss was unexpectedly thrust into the media spotlight for his alleged influence on neoconservative politics. With The Truth about Leo Strauss, Michael and Catherine Zuckert challenged the many claims and speculations about this complex thinker. Now, with Leo Strauss and the Problem of Political Philosophy, they offer a more comprehensive interpretation of Strauss’s thought, using the many manifestations of the “problem of political philosophy” as their touchstone. Strauss, they argue, sought to restore political philosophy to its original Socratic form. This is demonstrated through his critique of positivism and historicism, two intellectual currents that undermined his Socratic project. The authors also explore Strauss’s interpretation of both ancient and modern political philosophers, including Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, and Locke. Finally, they examine Strauss’s thought in the context of the twentieth century, when his chief interlocutors were Schmitt, Husserl, Heidegger, and Nietzsche. Leo Strauss and the Problem of Political Philosophy is the most in-depth treatment of this often misunderstood thinker, examining his ideas across his long career. It reveals Strauss’s overall intellectual project: to decode how ancient and modern theory attempted to solve the problem of political philosophy. And it shows why Strauss considered the ancient solution both philosophically and politically superior.

Author: Tony Burns
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited
ISBN: 1845406605
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
Leo Strauss was a political philosopher who died in 1973 but came to came to prominent attention in the United States and also Britain around the beginning of the War in Iraq. Charges began emerging that architects of the war such as Paul Wolfowitz and large numbers of staff in the US State and Defense Departments had studied with, or been influenced by, the academic work of Strauss and his followers. A vague, but powerful, idea was generated in the popular press that a group known as the Straussians had been instrumental in the long-range strategic planning of American foreign policy, both to advance American interests and to encourage democratic revolutions outside the West. This volume of essays opens up the topic of Leo Strauss and the Straussians to those outside the relatively narrow circles who have been concerned with him and his followers up to now.

Author: Kenneth L. Deutsch
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780847678389
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 410

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Book Description
In this book, 19 prominent representatives of each side in the basic division among Strauss's followers explore his contribution to political philosophy and Jewish thought. The volume presents the most extensive analysis yet published of Strauss's religious heritage and how it related to his work, and includes Strauss's previously unpublished 'Why We Remain Jews, ' an extraordinary essay concerned with the challenge posed to Judaism by modern secular thought. The extensive introduction interrelates the major themes of Strauss's thought