Shakespeare's Political Wisdom offers careful interpretations of five Shakespearean plays-Julius Caesar, Macbeth, The Merchant of Venice, King Lear, and The Tempest-with a view to the enduring guidance those plays can provide to human, political life. The

On Tyranny remains a perennial favorite, possessing a timelessness that few philosophical or scholarly debates have ever achieved. On one hand, On Tyranny is the first book-length work in Leo Strauss's extended study of Xenophon, and his "Restatement" retains a vivacity and directness that is sometimes absent in his later works. On the other, "Tyranny and Wisdom" is perhaps the most succinct yet fullest articulation of Alexandre Kojeve's overall political thought, and it presents what may be the most uncompromising alternative to Strauss's position as a whole. This volume...

This collection of essays, offered in honor of the distinguished career of prominent political philosophy professor Clifford Orwin, provides a wide context in which to consider the rise of "humanity" as one of the chief modern virtues. A relative of--and also a replacement for--formerly more prominent other-regarding virtues like justice and generosity, humanity and later compassion become the true north of the modern moral compass. Contributors to this volume consider various aspects of this virtue, by comparison with what came before and with attention to its development from early to late...

Shakespeare's Political Wisdom offers interpretations of five Shakespearean plays with a view to the enduring guidance those plays can provide to human, political life. The plays have been chosen for their relentless attention to the questions that were once and may sometime become, or be recognized as being, the heart and soul of politics.

Brill's Companion to Leo Strauss' Writings on Classical Political Thought offers clear, accessible essays to assist a new generation of readers in their introduction to Strauss' writings on the ancients, and to deepen the understanding of those who have already benefitted from his work. Strauss rediscovered esoteric writing. His careful explications of works by classical thinkers-- of Socratic political philosophy, pre-Socratic philosophers, and of poets tragic and comic--have therefore opened those works up in a way that had been lost for centuries. Yet Strauss' writings, especially...