Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empire

How an unlikely group of academics came to power in Washington and provided the philosophical justification for the war on Iraq

This provocative book examines the thinking of political theorist Leo Strauss and how his ideas have been appropriated-or misappropriated-for various conservative agendas.
This enlightening book examines the thinking of political theorist Leo Strauss and how his ideas have been appropriated-or misappropriated-for various conservative agendas. Anne Norton tells the story of the Jewish German-born émigré, his philosophic heirs, and why they are advocates of an American imperialism.

"Is George W. Bush not only the most conservative president we've ever had, but an entirely new kind of conservative whose ideas will dominate American politics for the foreseeable future? Or is he-along with the neoconservative 'Straussians' who advised him to go to war in Iraq-not really a conservative at all, but a daring crusader who'd make a real conservative, like Leo Strauss turn over in his grave? . . . Anne Norton's Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empire, gets [the answers to these questions] right. . . . Her most impressive achievement is to demonstrate how far the ideas we associate with Straussians have strayed from the ideas of Leo Strauss, the German Jewish émigre philosopher who was a central figure at the University of Chicago after World War II."-Alan Wolfe, New York Times Book Review