Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empire

"Punchy, personal and passionate, this book aims to explain 'how an unlikely group of academics came to power in Washington and provided the philosophical justification for the war on Iraq.' The German-born Strauss (1899-1973) came to the United States as a Jewish refugee in 1938, ultimately teaching political philosophy at the University of Chicago. In sketching his life and the legacy of his ideas, Norton (95 Theses on Politics, Culture and Method) argues that Strauss's method of closely reading great books (à la late disciple Allan Bloom) does not presuppose the neoconservative politics with which the method has come to be associated. Strauss's readings of Islamic texts, in particular, she says, are contrary to the 'clash of civilizations' that has been constructed by Straussians William Kristol and Robert Kagan in their collection Present Dangers. Norton, who teaches at the University of Pennsylvania, was trained by Chicago Straussians herself, and she writes less as a turncoat than as a watchdog. She tracks Paul Wolfowitz's years at the University of Chicago and decries the culture of clubby, masculine power that she says Bloom created there. She also traces the series of Strauss-related political appointments that brought Wolfowitz to the Bush administration. Straussians, Norton claims, admire Lincoln for his willingness to act dictatorially on behalf of democracy; Strauss himself, she suggests, was far less Machiavellian. Some strands could be better woven together to explain how Straussians directly undergird the war, but this book should nonetheless stimulate debate." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

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.