Leo Straussisquo;s lifelong intellectual mission was to recover csquo;classical rationalism squo;, a pursuit that has made him a controversial figure to this day. While his critics see him as responsible for a troubling anti-democratic strain in modern politics, others argue that his thought is in fact the best defence of responsible democracy.
Neil Robertsonesquo;s new introduction to Strauss aims to transcend these divides and present a non-partisan account of his thought. He shows how Strausscsquo; intellectual formation in Weimar Germany and flight from Nazism led him to develop a critique of modernity that tended to support a conservative politics, while embracing a radical sense of what philosophy is and can be. He examines the way in which Strauss built upon the thought of Nietzsche and Heidegger in order to show how their 'nihilism' led not to a standpoint beyond western rationality, but to a recovery of its roots.
This skillful reconstruction of the coherence and unity of Strauss
