Paul Gottfried's Book on Leo Strauss

The American Conservative's Kenneth B. McIntyre reviews the book on the man whose "work is almost universally dismissed by philosophers and historians, yet [who] has attracted a following amongst political theorists... and neoconservative political activists" and whose legacy has been "to develop an abstract legend of American politics that supports a moderate welfare state domestically and a quasi-messianic internationalism in foreign policy" — The Right’s False Prophet.

"[U]nlike critics on the left who suggest that Strauss is illiberal and anti-modern, Gottfried argues that Strauss’s appeal consists largely in his creation of a mythical account of the rise of liberal democracy and its culmination in a creedal conception of the American polity."