Leo Strauss and the American Right FROM THE PUBLISHER
In 1980, Ronald Reagan was elected president of the United States for the 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? Shadia Drury provides a fascinating answer to the question as she looks at the work of Leo Strauss, a seemingly reclusive German-Jewish emigre and scholar who was one of the most influential individuals in the neoconservative movement, a man widely seen as the godfather of the Republican party's "Contract with America." Drury delves deeply into his work at the University of Chicago, where he taught his students that, if they truly loved America, they must save her from her fateful enchantment with liberalism.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
After the Republican Party drafted its Contract With America in 1994, the New York Times traced the document's neoconservative ideology to the late Leo Strauss (1899-1973), a German Jewish migr and professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago during the 1950s and '60s. Dubbed by the media as the "godfather of the conservative revolution," Strauss, according to Drury, was considered to be the shadowy force behind the Republican Party, as his teachings were being spread by former students and admirers like Allan Bloom, Clarence Thomas, William Bennett and Irving Kristol. Although Drury's (The Political Ideas of Leo Strauss) prose is occasionally dry and academic, her evidence is persuasive, and her research is impeccable. Beginning with an account of Straussians in Washington, she works back to the professor's dominant ideas and how they affected the current political climate. She investigates how Strauss formed his ideology and what events, such as the Holocaust, may have shaped his views. Her own opinions on the matter of conservatives vs. liberals (she sides with the latter) are clearly stated yet remain incidental because her interest seems to lie in exploration rather than conversion. For students of political theory, Drury is an expert guide. (Jan.)
Library Journal
Drury (political science, Univ. of Calgary) has expanded an earlier work, The Political Ideas of Leo Strauss (St. Martin's, 1988), to examine the influence of reclusive political philosopher Leo Strauss (1899-1973) on the American neoconservative movement. Drury rejects Strauss's philosophy for its attacks on liberalism and call to institute strong moral leadership in the United States. She largely reviews Strauss's political philosophy and spends considerable time on his views of Judaic and German philosophers. Drury points out Strauss's influence on many in the neoconservative movement, including Allan Bloom and Irving Kristol, and on the Republican Party's Contract with America. But she spends far more time on Strauss's philosophical views than on how these views manifested themselves in others' writings. Her book also requires not only an understanding of Strauss, which is tedious enough, but of the philosophies of Plato, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Schmitt, and others. The work's appeal is limited to advanced graduate-level students in political philosophy.Patricia Hatch, Insurance Inst. for Property Loss Reduction, Boston
Booknews
Although Leo Strauss was a reclusive and secretive scholar, he is often thought of as one of the prime architects of the ideology that produced the Reagan revolution and the Republican party's Contract with American. Drury (politics, U. of Calgary, Canada) looks at Strauss's life and intellectual development, and the ways in which his followers have applied his ideas to American history and politics. She maintains that American neoconservatism is a radical and reactionary philosophy that derives its distinctive qualities from the influence of Strauss. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.
Booknews
Drury (politics, U. of Calgary) finds in the seemingly reclusive German-Jew emigrant and scholar one of the most influential people in the neoconservative movement that blossomed with the 1980 election of Reagan as US president, and the Godfather of the Contract with America. She places his role in the context of his life in Germany and the state of US society. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknew.com)
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