Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empire

by Anne Norton

Book Overview

The teachings of political theorist Leo Strauss (1899-1973) have recently received new attention, as political observers have become aware of the influence Strauss's students have had in shaping conservative agendas of the Bush administration--including the war on Iraq. This provocative book examines Strauss's ideas and the ways in which they have been appropriated, or misappropriated, by senior policymakers.

Anne Norton, a political theorist...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0300109733
• ISBN13: 9780300109733
• Release Date: October 2005
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

A Classic

This is a wonderful book, written with eloquence and honesty. Although the book says more about Straussians than it does about Strauss, it does make clear how much the current breed of neoconservatives have grossly distorted his philosophy. I was particularly pleased by the discussion of Allan Bloom. So many of my progressive friends found his book "The Closing of the American Mind" praiseworthy that I wondered if I had missed something of value in his book. Professor Norton is to be praised for this classic work.

Tracing Strauss's influence

Norton's book is a an attempt to trace the influence of Strauss and Straussianism in the U.S. Academy and in the imperialist politics that govern the new U.S. interventionism abroad. It is a refreshing, immensely readable account of the legacy that Leo Strauss's thought and work has had over the course of the past 40-50 years. Unlike other commentators, Norton does not diabolicize Strauss, yet nonetheless points to the aspects of his thought that opened it up to the conservative and neo-conservative embrace. She demonstrates how Strauss's thought (and other conservative thinkers) have been instrumentalized and transformed by the neoconservative revolution and its hegemonic project.

READ THIS BOOK!!

Not quite a critique of Strauss himself - that's for another book, perhaps, Anne Norton's brilliant "Leo Strauss and the Politics Of America Empire" is an exposé of the Straussians' (Wolfowitz, Kristol, Kagan etc) corruption of Strauss's philosophies which led to the grotesquely unamerican Project For The New American Century. Professor Norton was herself a Straussian student and knows her subject well. It is a damning indictment of the whole Bush administration's philosophical and intellectual underpinning. Not least, Norton shows how, far from being arch-Conservatives, the PNAC Gang have junked every single principle that marked American patrician conservatism as an honorable, if often questionable, strand of American life. There are great chapters on Israel, on Classical Democracy, on Fundamentalism in terms of how they connect with the NeoCon doctrine. Nor does Ms Norton flinch from comparisons with the anti-Liberal theologies of Sayyid Qutb, also forged in post-war America but now the seeds of Islamofascism in the Middle East. The world is now being run by dangerous intellectuals who can hardly believe their luck that they are being heard outside the Academy.

Eminently readable book on timely subject

I have been interested in Leo Strauss ever since I heard of the neoconservatives. I was intrigued by what appeared to be a new movement within the right (in contradistinction to a long fissiparousness on the left). I found it hard to believe any American politicians or bureaucrats could have a patron philosophy professor, much less an emigre jew who taught at the University of Chicago as well as Cornell. There is even a connection to Allan Bloom, who's book motivated policies during the Reagen era and was a student of Strauss. Bloom died a few years ago and Saul Bellow wrote the book Ravelstein about him and their friendship (also a great book, Bloom sounds like a nutty guy). This book reads a bit better than Closing of the American Mind which I found virtually unreadable (admittedly, I am no scholar but I couldn't even begin to undertand how this could have shaped policy). Norton's book reveals a virtually unbelieveable conspiracy. She speaks of "Truth Squads" (intellectual goon squads) at Chicago that bullied nonStraussian professors. It sounds absurd and yet it resulted in a suicide by a professor. She also mentions an incestous nepotism by Staussians. How can that be in the academic world where tenure is so difficult to attain yet she mentions that some professors are afraid of hiring a Staussian for this very reason. The book got a good mention in the New York Review of Books (that's how I originally found it) and the neocons need no introduction (just check out the Economist). I am still not sure how this justifies a foray into Iraq, but if you are curious about this political movement on the right or if you just can't believe American politicians in this century have a guiding philosophy you should check out this book.