Leo Strauss and the Politics of Exile: The Making of a Political Philosopher
Born in rural Hesse, Germany, Leo Strauss (1899-1973) became an active Zionist and philosopher during the tumultuous and fractious Weimar Republic. As Eugene R. Sheppard demonstrates in this groundbreaking and engaging book, Strauss gravitated towards such thinkers as Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Heidegger, and Carl Schmitt as he sought to identify and overcome fundamental philosophical, political, and theological crises. The rise of Nazism impelled Strauss as a young Jewish emigre, first in...
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A probing study that demystifies the common portrayal of Leo Strauss as the inspiration for American neo-conservativism by tracing his philosophy to its German Jewish roots.
Acknowledgments xiIntroduction 1Antisemitism and Neo-Kantianism: From Kirchhain to Marburg (1899-1920) 9The Formation of a Weimar Conservative Jew (1921-1932) 17European Exile and Reorientation (1932-1937) 54Persecution and the Art of Writing: The New York Years (1938-1948) 81Conclusion: Looking Back on Weimar and the Politics of Exile 118Abbreviations 131Notes 133Index 179
\ From the Publisher"Mr. Sheppard has written a pathbreaking work that brings to light much important information about the first half of Strauss's academic career."--New York Sun\ "Sheppard offers a fascinating alternative reading of the Straussian project. Sheppard maintains that Strauss's exilic politics can also point to social imperfection and address injustices and fragmentation brought about by modern governments."\ --H-Net\ "[An] indispensable guide." --Religious Studies Review\ "Eugene Sheppard is an intellectual historian who as such rejects the possibility of the "timeless mind" that Strauss accepts, and who therefore writes from a perspective outside Strauss. But he is not unfriendly to him, and thanks him for having "widened my own horizons.""--Claremont Review of Books\ \ \
