The Catholic Moment in the Political Philosophy of Leo Strauss
When I first mentioned my plan to speak on the topic of this essay a few years back, I was greeted with guffaws, or at least the email equivalent. Ha, someone wrote, you Straussians: Now you’ll show the master to have been a Jesuit! Another was reminded of the…
Pierre Manent on Raymond Aron and Leo Strauss
RAYMOND ARON AND LEO STRAUSS On the advice of your preparatory class teacher, you met Raymond Aron. How did the special relationship you had with him begin? First of all, I probably would have gone to see Aron even if Jugnet hadn’t recommended I do it. Still, it pleases…
The Monstrous Politics of Leo Strauss
“But as perfect men I regard those who are able to mingle and fuse political capacity with philosophy. Such men, I take it, are masters of the two greatest goods there are: as statesmen, a life of public usefulness, and a tranquil existence of untroubled serenity in the pursuit…
Venezuela’s Totalitarian Virus
1 Totalitarianism, like a virus leading to a deadly disease, reappears in ever new guises and forms. Its ideology, in the words of Karl Jaspers, is a “soulless, daemonic something which seizes everybody—those who drift into it blindly as well as those that half-knowingly bring it about.” Recalling the…
The Price of Velvet: Thomas Masaryk and Vaclav Havel
The study is concerned with the specific nature of two velvet revolutions in Czech history – in 1918 and 1989 – and with the philosophy of the two men who lead them – T. G. Masaryk and V. Havel. Havel opposed an indisputably repulsive regime, whereas Masaryk stood against…
Common Sense and Central Europe
An elementary fact in the history of thought is the emergence of philosophical schools around prominent thinkers. The disciples of a Master strived to preserve his work for the future, to carry through his basic intention and to continue in the implementation of the task pursued, but unattained by…
On the advice of your preparatory class teacher, you met Raymond Aron. How did the special relationship you had with him begin?
First of all, I probably would have gone to see Aron even if Jugnet hadn’t recommended I do it. Still, it pleases me that there was a kind of—let us not say apostolic succession—but…
Totalitarianism, like a virus leading to a deadly disease, reappears in ever new guises and forms. Its ideology, in the words of Karl Jaspers, is a “soulless, daemonic something which seizes everybody—those who drift into it blindly as well as those that half-knowingly bring it about.” Recalling the self-deception that blinded many of the German people in the early 1930s,…
The study is concerned with the specific nature of two velvet revolutions in Czech history – in 1918 and 1989 – and with the philosophy of the two men who lead them – T. G. Masaryk and V. Havel. Havel opposed an indisputably repulsive regime, whereas Masaryk stood against a regime that he was to reject late in life and…
Self-Interest and Public Interest in Western Politics. Leif Lewin. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.
Leif Lewin's book Self-Interest and Public Interest in Western Politics contains, as a main theme, an attack on public-choice theory. This theme, however, is not in any way revealed by the rather neutral title of the book, nor by the publisher's text on the back-cover, nor by…
A Varieties of Chinese Nationalisms and Their Implications on Religions
This volume is a collection of papers discussing “the origin, development, content, and implications of religion-state relations” in mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong (10). The lens of using nationalism in examining state-society-religion relations works as an overarching theme…
The Catholic Moment in the Political Philosophy of Leo Strauss 
The Life of the Scholar 
The Use of Force 
“A Cow Is Just a Cow”: George Grant and Eric Voegelin on the United States 
The Collected Works: The Drama of Humanity (Volume 33) 
Eric Voegelin as Master Teacher 
New Political Religions, or An Analysis of Modern Terrorism 
What is a Miracle? 
What Enlightenment, Exactly? 
God is Not Just the Good, as Plato Claimed But Love 
Pierre Manent on Raymond Aron and Leo Strauss 
The Monstrous Politics of Leo Strauss 
Venezuela’s Totalitarian Virus 
The Price of Velvet: Thomas Masaryk and Vaclav Havel 
Common Sense and Central Europe 
Tilo Schabert’s Lectures on Germany and France 
The True Form of Governments: Plato, Persons, and Helmut Kohl 
How the World is Made: France and the Reunification of Germany 
“The German Question is a European Question”: France and the Reunification of Germany. A Critical Assessment. 
Self-Interest and Public Interest in Western Politics