Corine Pelluchon is Full Professor in Philosophy at the University of Franche-Comté in France. In addition to her book on Leo Strauss, which was awarded the François Furet Prize in 2006, she has written several other books. Robert Howse is Lloyd C. Nelson Professor of International Law at New York University School of Law and the author of Leo Strauss: Man of Peace.

• Translator’s NoteIntroductionThe Crisis of RationalismTwo Historical Shocks and a ThreatThe Crisis of Political PhilosophyModern Rationalism as the Destruction of ReasonThe Archeology and Overcoming of NihilismPart I. The Dissection of the Modern Religious Consciousness Introduction: The Perplexity of the Modern Religious Consciousness1. Enlightenment and Anti-EnlightenmentThe Jacobi QuestionThe Pantheism DebateThe Critique of Natural ReligionThere Is No Such Thing as Moderate EnlightenmentThe Rejection of the Kantian SolutionThe Controversy over the French RevolutionThe Crisis of the TraditionThe Science of Judaism and the Dialectic of AssimilationThe Discontinuity of the Ancients and ModernsThe Aporias of Zionism 2. Critique of Religion and Biblical CriticismThe Critique of Religion and Revelation in HobbesEpicureanismThe Interpretation of the BibleSocinianism and the Radical EnlightmentThe Need to Reconsider the Radical EnlightenmentSpinoza’s Particular Contribution to the Critique of ReligionPersecution and the Art of WritingThe Religion of the Ignorant and WeakBiblical Criticism (Bibelswissenschaft)The Social Function of ReligionThe Universal Religion and the "Christianity" of SpinozaThe Ambiguity of SpinozaThe Limits of Secular MoralityThe Enlightenment of SpinozaThe Legacy of the Critique of ReligionThe Critique of Revelation Has Not Destroyed the Interest in RevelationThe Challenge of PhilosophyThe Debt of the New Orthodoxy to the Enlightenment and Religious Liberalism3. The Return to the TraditionRationalism and MysticismAllegory and SymbolReason and ExperienceThe Human Experience of the AbsoluteReligion and PhilosophyEthics and SpiritualityRedemption and PoliticsThe Jewish Enlightenment of MaimonidesCohen and StraussFrom Morality to PoliticsThe Rational Critique of ReasonPart II. The Dissections of Modern Political Consciousness Introduction: The Foundations of Modern Political Thought1. The First Wave of ModernityMachiavelli, the Originator of the Modern EnlightenmentThe End of the Renaissance Humanist IdealPower, the Mastery of Men, and the Mastery of NaturePhilosophy, Propaganda, and BarbarismHobbes or the Founding of the Modern StatePolitical ScienceVanity and FearIndividualism, Liberalism, and AbsolutismFrom War to CommerceThe Crisis of Liberalism: The Dialogue between Strauss and SchmittFrom the Rechtsstaat to the Total State in the Era of TechnologyWar and the Affirmation of the PoliticalDecisionism and Political PhilosophyResoluteness in Heidegger2. The Second and Third Waves of ModernityThe Rousseauian MovementThe Paradoxes of RousseauSociety and the RichRevolution, and History, and the General WillModern Tyranny, Marxism, and CapitalismThe Dialogue between Strauss and KojevePhilosophy and PoliticsLocke’s LiberalismThe Contemporary Form of TyrannyNihilism according to Nietzsche and after NietzscheThe Repetition of Antiquity at the Peak of ModernityThe Law as Denaturing and the Religious Atheism of NietzscheThe Radicalism of the Straussian Critique of Christianity3. Political Philosophy as First PhilosophyThe Return to SocratesPolitical Philosophy as the Fulfillment of PhenomenologyThe Conflict between Poetry and PhilosophyWisdom and ModerationThe Medieval EnlightenmentThe Platonism of Farabi and MaimonidesThe Enlightenment of MaimonidesThe Natural Conditions of ProphecyEsoteric Teaching and the EnlightenmentThe Task for Thinking and the Rebirth of PhilosophyPhenomenology and the Meaning of the LawThe Concepti