Leo Strauss on Democracy Technology and Liberal Education

<p><b>The first book-length study of Leo Strauss' understanding of the relation between modern democracy technology and liberal education.</b></p><p>Liberal democracy is today under unprecedented attack from both the left and the right. Offering a fresh and penetrating examination of how Leo Strauss understood the emergence of liberal democracy and what is necessary to sustain and elevate it <i>Leo Strauss on Democracy Technology and Liberal Education</i> explores Strauss' view of the intimate (and troubling) relation between the philosophic promotion of liberal democracy and the turn to the modern scientific-technological project of the conquest of nature. Timothy W. Burns explicates the political reasoning behind Strauss' recommendation of reminders of genuine political greatness <i>within</i> democracy over and against the failure of nihilistic youth to recognize it. Elucidating what Strauss envisaged by a liberally-educated sub-political or cultural-level aristocracy-one that could elevate and sustain liberal democracy-and the roles that both philosophy and divine-law traditions should have in that education Burns also lays out Strauss' frequent (though often tacit) engagement with the thought of Heidegger on these issues.</p>