This book offers an original interpretation of the achievement of Leo Strauss, stressing how his ideas and followers reshaped the American conservative movement. According to this study, Strauss and his disciples came to influence the establishment Right almost by accident. 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." Strauss's followers continue to view themselves as stalwart Truman-Kennedy Democrats and liberal internationalists. 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.
Leo Strauss and the Conservative Movement in America
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
"Paul Gottfried gives us the most knowledgeable and balanced analysis yet published of the thought of Leo Strauss and of his disciples, the famous and controversial Straussians. Like Strauss himself, Gottfried is deeply grounded in the great traditions of both German and Jewish scholarship. The resulting book is a rich, deep, and wise interpretation of the most important American political theorist of the mid-twentieth century."-James Kurth, Swarthmore College
"Paul Gottfried's crisp and incisive study offers a fresh perspective on the subject of Strauss and his students. A gifted intellectual historian, Gottfried brings a breadth and density of knowledge, both of fin-de-siècle German Jewish culture and of post-World War II American conservatism, which he draws upon to challenge much of the conventional wisdom about his subject. The resulting book is a must-read for all serious students of American intellectual history and American conservatism."-Wilfred M. McClay, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
"There appears to be a terrible mental derangement, called 'Straussophobia,' afflicting American academic life. Paul Gottfried is the therapist we need to disentangle its elements."-Kenneth Minogue, London School of Economics
"Paul Gottfried is a learned scholar and a principled conservative. His admirably detailed and reflective study, which considers Strauss in the context of European and American intellectual history, commands our attention."-Anne Norton, University of Pennsylvania
"Paul Gottfried's crisp and incisive study offers a fresh perspective on the subject of Strauss and his students. A gifted intellectual historian, Gottfried brings a breadth and density of knowledge, both of fin-de-siècle German Jewish culture and of post-World War II American conservatism, which he draws upon to challenge much of the conventional wisdom about his subject. The resulting book is a must-read for all serious students of American intellectual history and American conservatism."-Wilfred M. McClay, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
"There appears to be a terrible mental derangement, called 'Straussophobia,' afflicting American academic life. Paul Gottfried is the therapist we need to disentangle its elements."-Kenneth Minogue, London School of Economics
"Paul Gottfried is a learned scholar and a principled conservative. His admirably detailed and reflective study, which considers Strauss in the context of European and American intellectual history, commands our attention."-Anne Norton, University of Pennsylvania
Book Description
This book offers a strikingly original interpretation of Leo Strauss, his "political philosophy," and the connection of both to the American conservative movement. There is nothing essentially "conservative" about what Strauss or his leading disciples have taught about politics or morals. Their reading of texts does not prefer antiquity to modernity. Strauss and his most prominent students offer a very contemporary-looking reading of pre-modern texts. They have also bequeathed to the current Right a combination of welfare state democracy and liberal internationalism as a foreign policy.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
By Grant Havers
Format:Hardcover
I can think of no other scholar alive today who can rival Paul Gottfried's encyclopedic knowledge of conservatism. For over 30 years, Gottfried has written several books and numerous articles on conservatism in the American and European traditions. (Many of these have been written in French and German as well as English, a testimony to his mastery of the necessary languages.) No one matches the erudition and study that Gottfried has devoted to conservatism.
Yet Gottfried has not only forged an impressive oeuvre on this subject. He has also courageously and brilliantly challenged all the distortions that pass for conventional wisdom on the meaning of conservatism today. For this reason, his new book on Strauss is a necessary as well as significant contribution to the literature. The vast majority of established conservatives in both politics and academe today in North America and beyond have uncritically accepted Strauss and his numerous followers as "true" conservatives, and, in turn, have endorsed their reinvention of conservatism (often known as "neoconservatism") as the real McCoy. In turn, most leftist critics of Strauss portray him and his epigones as right-wing radicals. Gottfried's book on Strauss firmly rejects both charges and makes a powerful and trenchant case against the popular belief, promulgated by Strauss's friends and detractors, that authentic conservatism is identical with wars for American hegemony abroad. Instead, Gottfried incisively contends that Strauss was a consistent defender of Cold War liberalism and its attendant credos of universal liberty and equality for all, who exhibited almost no sympathy for the traditional (Burkean) conservative tradition that opposes metaphysical generalizations about the "timeless" human desire for freedom and democracy.
This book is no polemic, however, against Strauss and his students (sadly, polemics are far too common in this ideologically charged debate). I am very impressed by the fairness and balanced judgement that Gottfried applies to his subject. He clearly respects the prodigious learning of Strauss, and does not fault the master for every rhetorical excess in which his students have often indulged. In short, this book is neither a whitewash nor a smear job. Gottfried's study is an essential corrective to the mystification that surrounds the meaning of Strauss's persistent influence in our time. Most importantly, he shows what true conservatism is supposed to represent--a humbling philosophy that preserves the traditional integrity of societies without embracing dreams of social engineering on a global scale.
Yet Gottfried has not only forged an impressive oeuvre on this subject. He has also courageously and brilliantly challenged all the distortions that pass for conventional wisdom on the meaning of conservatism today. For this reason, his new book on Strauss is a necessary as well as significant contribution to the literature. The vast majority of established conservatives in both politics and academe today in North America and beyond have uncritically accepted Strauss and his numerous followers as "true" conservatives, and, in turn, have endorsed their reinvention of conservatism (often known as "neoconservatism") as the real McCoy. In turn, most leftist critics of Strauss portray him and his epigones as right-wing radicals. Gottfried's book on Strauss firmly rejects both charges and makes a powerful and trenchant case against the popular belief, promulgated by Strauss's friends and detractors, that authentic conservatism is identical with wars for American hegemony abroad. Instead, Gottfried incisively contends that Strauss was a consistent defender of Cold War liberalism and its attendant credos of universal liberty and equality for all, who exhibited almost no sympathy for the traditional (Burkean) conservative tradition that opposes metaphysical generalizations about the "timeless" human desire for freedom and democracy.
This book is no polemic, however, against Strauss and his students (sadly, polemics are far too common in this ideologically charged debate). I am very impressed by the fairness and balanced judgement that Gottfried applies to his subject. He clearly respects the prodigious learning of Strauss, and does not fault the master for every rhetorical excess in which his students have often indulged. In short, this book is neither a whitewash nor a smear job. Gottfried's study is an essential corrective to the mystification that surrounds the meaning of Strauss's persistent influence in our time. Most importantly, he shows what true conservatism is supposed to represent--a humbling philosophy that preserves the traditional integrity of societies without embracing dreams of social engineering on a global scale.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Anyone familiar with Prof Gottfried's work knows that he has frequently engaged in bitter debates with the Struassians and complained that they were responsible for some of the professional setbacks in his long career as a prolific writer and academic. They have prevented him from attaining appointments at prestigious academic institutions and ignored his many scholarly publications. Therefore, one would expect this book to be a bitter indictment of Struass and the Struassians. However, this is not the case at all. Instead, Gottfried avoids polemics in this impressively researched work. The documentation for this study, though, is so overwhelming, drawing from sources in at least five languages, that many readers may find it a hard slog. The book is intended for readers already well versed in modern European social and political thought.
Gottfried obviously respects Strauss as a scholar and recognizes him as a major thinker who has had a considerable impact on politics and political thought. He is less charitable, though, with many of Strauss's epigones who he criticizes as pale copies of their master and too dogmatic and narrow.
Since Gottfried is writing for an academic audience rather than the general public, it is doubtful that this book will be widely read. However, I predict that it will be eventually acclaimed as a significant critical assessment of Strauss's work and impact on academics, journalists and political figures.
Gottfried obviously respects Strauss as a scholar and recognizes him as a major thinker who has had a considerable impact on politics and political thought. He is less charitable, though, with many of Strauss's epigones who he criticizes as pale copies of their master and too dogmatic and narrow.
Since Gottfried is writing for an academic audience rather than the general public, it is doubtful that this book will be widely read. However, I predict that it will be eventually acclaimed as a significant critical assessment of Strauss's work and impact on academics, journalists and political figures.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
By B. Cathey
Format:Hardcover
In many ways, Paul Gottfried's latest volume on Leo Strauss is a kind of fitting summation of much of his earlier, path-breaking work on multiculturalism. In his earlier trilogy on that topic he traces carefully the development and inherent problems in multiculturalism and its many-faceted effects on American and European society. In this present, incredibly rich volume, he discusses with precision and ample documentation the thought of the late philosopher Leo Strauss, and how his disciples now dominate the so-called "conservative" movement. As Gottfried did earlier in his seminal study, Conservatism in America, he demonstrates with calm equanimity that the legacy of Strauss and his followers has been a brand of thinking that has steered much of American thought away from the tenets of an earlier conservatism as expostulated by a Russell Kirk or Mel Bradford. This has had, secondarily, very significant implications for American politics and culture, and Gottfried indicates what these implications have been and are.
This is a remarkable volume, one that demands attention from acute observers and historians of American and European culture and political history. It is well-written and encyclopedic in scope, a critical book for an understanding of our historical and intellectual milieu.
This is a remarkable volume, one that demands attention from acute observers and historians of American and European culture and political history. It is well-written and encyclopedic in scope, a critical book for an understanding of our historical and intellectual milieu.
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