Leo Strauss and Emmanuel Levinas

Leora Batnitzky is Asssociate Professor of Religion at Princeton University. She is the author of Idolatry and Representation: the Philosophy of Franz Rosenzweig Reconsidered and editor of the forthcoming Martin Buber: Schriften zur Philosophie und Religion. She is co-editor of Jewish Studies Quarterly.

• Acknowledgements; List of abbreviations; Preface; Part I. Philosophy: 1. Strauss and Levinas between Athens and Jerusalem; 2. Levinas's defense of modern philosophy: how Strauss might respond; Part II. Revelation: 3. 'Freedom depends upon its bondage': the shared debt to Franz Rosenzweig; 4. An irrationalist rationalism: Levinas's transformation of Hermann Cohen; 5. The possibility of pre-modern rationalism: Strauss's transformation of Hermann Cohen; Part III. Politics: 6. Against utopia: law and its limits; 7. Zionism and the discovery of prophetic politics; 8. Politics and hermeneutics: Strauss's and Levinas's retrieval of classical Jewish sources; 9. Revelation and commandment; 10. Concluding thoughts: progress or return?; Notes; References; Index.

'This book is brilliant, scholarly, and provocative. It combines with rare success philosophical acumen, historical learning, and an exciting thesis. Leo Strauss and Emmanuel Levinas: Philosophy and the Politics of Revelation is a major work of theology by one of the premier thinkers in religious philosophy of the day, writing at the very highest level of commentary, having produced a book with potential to resonate in a wide variety of fields, with critical implications (most drawn by the author herself) for thinking about major figures, schools, and discussions, executed with exemplary erudition.' Samuel Moyn, Columbia University