On Straussian Teachings (Comments) (Book Review‪)‬

IN THE TRUTH ABOUT LEO STRAUSS, Catherine and Michael Zuckert, both professors holding endowed chairs at the University of Notre Dame, have set out to vindicate the reputation of their mentor Leo Strauss. The results reveal both a detailed and sympathetic knowledge of Strauss's teachings and the choice of eminently deserving targets for criticism. The Zuckerts develop a far more plausible picture of Strauss than the caricatures offered by leftist critics in the national press and by two widely quoted academic writers of censorious volumes about Strauss, Anne Norton and Shadia Drury. The Zuckerts remind us that those who should know better, like Alan Wolfe, have ascribed to Strauss a bogus "fascist" lineage. In the Chronicle of Higher Education, Wolfe condemned Strauss and his disciples for, among other blunders, being associated with me in some unexplained fashion, because of my authorship of a book on Strauss's supposed teacher, Carl Schmitt. Wolfe, a sociologist, does not document his assertion, a task that would be impossible since the assertion is baseless.