Posted on 10/03/2004 7:30:13 PM PDT by rmlew
THIS is not the book to read if you wish to learn about Leo Strauss, one of the 20th century's great students of the history of political philosophy, or about his influence on the shape of neoconservatism and thereby on the Bush administration's transformation of American foreign policy in response to the 9/11 attacks.
Yet Norton's book — chock full of factual errors, personal smears and fatuous assertions — is valuable for what it tells you about the debasement of intellectual standards at our leading universities.
Before page 20 in this peer-reviewed and Yale-editorial-board-approved book, one encounters numerous mistakes. Some are small. (Contrary to Norton, Strauss not only wrote about Spinoza, Maimonides and Carl Schmitt before he came to America in 1938 at age 39, he also wrote a full-length study of Thomas Hobbes.) Some are vicious. (Contrary to Norton, Harvard Professor of Government Harvey Mansfield, my colleague for nine years, welcomes students on the left.)
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Peter Berkowitz takes apart ANNE NORTON's slander in LEO STRAUSS AND THE POLITICS OF AMERICAN EMPIRE
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