Leo Strauss

Robert Howse is the Lloyd C. Nelson Professor of International Law at New York University Law School, where he serves on the advisory board of the Center for Law and Philosophy. He has taught as a visiting professor at Harvard University, the University of Paris I (Pantheon-Sorbonne), and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and has previously held positions at the University of Michigan and the University of Toronto. His publications include, with Bryan-Paul Frost, the translation of the interpretative essay for Alexandre Kojève's Outline of a Phenomenology of Right and The Federal Vision: Legitimacy and Levels of Governance in the US and the EU, co-edited with Kalypso Nicolaidis, as well as several articles on twentieth-century political thinkers, including Strauss, Kojève and Schmitt.

• 1. Introduction: reopening the case of Leo Strauss; 2. Warrior morality and the fate of civilization: Strauss's encounter with Carl Schmitt and German nihilism; 3. Legitimacy and legality, thinking and ruling in the closed society and the world state: the Strauss/Kojève debate; 4. Strauss's Machiavelli: fallen angel and theoretical man; 5. Thucydides versus Machiavelli: a moral-political horizon of war and law; 6. Justice and progress: Strauss's assessment of modern international law; 7. Conclusion.

'Even if you are convinced that nothing new or provocative could possibly be said about Leo Strauss, Rob Howse's book will force you to rethink your position. Both friends and foes of Strauss will find much of interest in this fascinating reinterpretation of one of the canonical figures of twentieth-century political theory. Focusing on Strauss' ideas about political violence, the volume's most important achievement is to lay bare the fundamentals of Strauss' oftentimes neglected international political and legal theory. Strauss poses an intellectual challenge to students of international law and politics, and Howse does a wonderful job sketching out that challenge's main features.' William E. Scheuerman, Indiana University