Abstract

This may be the first truly competent, single author, book-length study of the thought of Leo Strauss. The entire book shows that Strauss's Jewish writings were not merely peripheral to his thought as a whole, determined by purely personal experience, but were rather "a central pillar of his entire thought". Particularly valuable is the careful way Green takes us through, not only Spinoza's Critique of Religion, but also those untranslated early works of Strauss, from 1924 to 1928, where some of his major positions can be seen to be in formation. Each work is explicated in its own terms without bringing in the qualifications Strauss's later thought would entail, so that a very clear picture of what he found especially convincing at each stage emerges. This is the first published speculation on the stages of Strauss's thought that I, for one, have been able to take seriously. The book is very fully referenced and annotated: much of the now extensive scholarly literature on Strauss is reviewed in the notes, for example, judicious comments on those who overexaggerate the influence of Nietzsche on Strauss.