Abstract

As Stephen A. McKnight says in his introduction, this substantial collection of twenty-one original essays “explores the development of Eric Voegelin’s distinctive approach to politics and history from its early formulation in the 1930s to its culmination in the 1980s”. Yet this volume is more than a chronological survey of Voegelin’s thought; it is a thoughtful and orderly reflection on and careful application of Voegelin’s general analysis and theoretical vocabulary to recent historical and political currents and trends in literary criticism. Reflecting this, the essays are divided into four headings: “ Die politischen Religionen,” “Political Religions in a Secular Age,” “ Order and History: Themes and Variations,” and “Voegelin’s ‘Implicit’ Theory of Literary and Modern Cultural Criticism.”