This important new work is a major analysis of the foundation of Eric Voegelin's political science. Barry Cooper maintains that the writings Voegelin undertook in the 1940s provide the groundwork for the brilliant book that is one of his best known, The New Science of Politics. At the time of that book's publication, however, few were aware of the enormous knowledge and accomplished scholarship that lay behind its illuminating, although sometimes baffling, formulations.

By focusing on several of the key chapters in Voegelin's eight- volume History of Political Ideas, especially the studies of Bodin, Vico, and Schelling, Cooper shows how those studies provide the basis for Voegelin's thought. Investigating Voegelin's study of Oriental influences on Western political "ideas," especially Mongol constitutional law, and his study of Toynbee, Cooper seeks to demonstrate the vast range of materials Voegelin used.

Cooper contends that, as with other great thinkers, political crisis, specifically the world war of 1939-1945, stimulated Voegelin's intellectual and spiritual achievement. He provides an analysis of Voegelin's immediate concern with the course of World War II, his ability to understand those dramatic events in a large context, and his ability to provide an insightful account of the causes, the significance, and the consequences of the spiritual and political disorder that was evident all around him.

In Eric Voegelin and the Foundations of Modern Political Science, Cooper makes the connection between Voegelin's political writings of the 1940s and the meditative interpretations that began to appear with the publication of Anamnesis and with the later volumes of Order and History much more intelligible than does any existing discussion of Voegelin. Scholars in intellectual history and political science will benefit enormously from this valuable new addition to Voegelin studies.

Faith and Political Philosophy consists of fifty-three letters between Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin, two of the most important political theorists of the twentieth century. In this correspondence, Strauss and Voegelin explore the nature of their similarities and differences, offering insightful observations about one another's work, about the state of the discipline, and about the influences working on them. The letters shed light on many assumptions made in their published writings, often with an openness that removes all vestiges of uncertainty.

Volume VI of Voegelin's account of the history of Western political ideas continues from the point reached in the previous volume with the study of the mystic-philosopher Jean Bodin. Voegelin begins with a discussion of the conflict between Bishop Bossuet and Voltaire concerning the relationship between what is conventionally identified as sacred history and profane history. Bossuet maintained the traditional Christian position, the origin of which may be traced to Saint Augustine's City of God. Voegelin shows, however, that while Bossuet may have been heir to an adequate understanding of human existence, Voltaire drew attention to a series of historical facts, such as the comparative size of the Russian and Roman empires, the existence of Chinese civilization, and the discovery of the New World, that could be incorporated into Bossuet's account only with great difficulty or not at all.

For the first time, the theoretical problem of the historicity of evocative symbols of political order becomes the focus of Voegelin's analysis. This major problem, which found a provisional solution in the New Science of Vico, was intertwined with several additional ones that may be summarized in terms of an increasing closure toward what Voegelin calls the world- transcendent ground of reality. Voegelin traces the consequences of the new attitudes and sentiments in terms of an increasing disorientation in personal, social, and political life, a disorientation that was expressed in increasingly impoverished experiences and accounts of history and of nature.

Vico represents the great exception to this decline in the intellectual adequacy of modern political ideas and modern self- understanding. Readers familiar with Voegelin's New Science of Politics will find in the long, challenging, and brilliant chapter on Vico and his New Science one of the major textual analyses that sustained Voegelin's entire intellectual enterprise. Indeed, the chapter on Vico, along with similarly provocative and insightful chapters on Bodin and on Schelling in other volumes, may almost be read as an element of Voegelin's own spiritual autobiography.

In New Political Religions, or an Analysis of Modern Terrorism, Barry Cooper applies the insights of Eric Voegelin to the phenomenon of modern terrorism. Cooper points out that the chief omission from most contemporary studies of terrorism is an analysis of the “spiritual motivation” that is central to the actions of terrorists today. When spiritual elements are discussed in conventional literature, they are grouped under the opaque term religion. A more conceptually adequate approach is provided by Voegelin’s political science and, in particular, by his Schellingian term pneumopathology—a disease of the spirit.

While terrorism has been used throughout the ages as a weapon in political struggles, there is an essential difference between groups who use these tactics for more of less rational political goals and those seeking more apocalyptic ends. Cooper argues that today's terrorists have a spiritual perversity that causes them to place greater significance on killing than on exploiting political grievances. He supports his assertion with an analysis of two groups that share the characteristics of a pneumopathological consciousness—Aum Shinrikyo, the terrorist organization that poisoned thousands of Tokyo subway riders in 1995, and Al-Qaeda, the group behind the infamous 9/11 killings.

Cooper applies the Voegelinian terms first reality (a commonsense goal regarding legitimate political grievances) and second reality (a fantastic objective sought by those whose rationality has been obscured) to show the major divide between political and apocalyptic terrorist groups. Osama Bin Laden's "second reality" was the imaginary goal that the 9/11 attack was supposed to achieve, and the commonsense reality was what truly happened (the deaths of nearly 3,000 people and the United States's subsequent military response). Cooper shows how such spiritual perversity enables a human being, imagining himself empowered by God, to go on a campaign of mass destruction.

Cooper concludes with a chapter on the uniqueness of terrorist networks, their limitations, and the means by which they can be dealt with. In the ongoing conversations among specialists in terrorist studies, as well as the ordinary discourse of citizens in western democracies wishing to understand the world around them, this book will add a distinctive voice.

 

 

This work presents analyses by experts on the rise of anew tide of conservative governments in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain in an attempt to find what, if any, common ideologies and programs unite them, with what results, in terms of institutional change and policy direction, have been, and what are the prospects for permanent change.

Over the course of his varied and distinguished academic life, Eric Voegelin was often called upon by review editors of scholarly journals as well as by editors in the popular press to examine, summarize, and critically assess the work of other scholars, of statesmen, and of men of affairs. The contents of the books Voegelin reviewed mirror his changing interests over the years, including questions of method, points of legal philosophy and jurisprudence, and issues of race, war, and the aftermath of war. Of course, he was frequently called upon as well to review standard texts and new editions and monographs across the full range of political science.

This collection of Voegelin's reviews amounts to a reflection in miniature of many of the problems Voegelin tackled in his essays, articles, and books from the 1920s until the 1950s, when, owing to the press of other business, he began to decline requests to review the work of others. Some of his reviews are little more than clinical summaries; others are analytic essays. A few are extended engagements with a text or a set of problems. Occasionally, particularly among the later reviews originally written in English, one finds flashes of Voegelin's legendary wit and a restrained impatience with the inadequate approaches or sheer incompetence of others. These book reviews will be of interest to all students and scholars of Eric Voegelin's work.

Although his contributions to philosophy are revered and his writings have been collected, Eric Voegelin’s persona will inevitably fade with the memories of those who knew him. This book preserves the human element of Voegelin by capturing those valuable personal recollections.

            Barry Cooper and Jodi Bruhn conducted intensive interviews with Voegelin’s wife, his closest friends, and his first-generation students—many of whom have since passed on—in order to bring to print everything important about his life and personality. American scholars will especially appreciate the glimpses provided by Voegelin’s German colleagues into his life in Munich, as well as the thoughts of his students in Vienna. Reflections of people such as Paul Caringella, Bruno Schlesinger, and Heinz Barazon capture Voegelin’s greatness and shortcomings alike and also shed new light on his philosophical quest for truth.

By descending progressively further into the past, the book takes readers deeper into the essence of Voegelin as reminiscences become more dramatic. Ranging widely from America back to Germany—with recollections of Gestapo intimidation and eventual emigration—the accounts interweave episodes of pathos, humor, fear, rivalry, and ambition. We witness Voegelin’s persistent and partly self-imposed communication problems and impatience with administrative duties, his respect for prudent political actors and public servants, and his genuine affection not only for his colleagues and best students but also for diligent secretaries and empathetic nurses. Through these recollections, key elements of his personality repeatedly emerge: his intelligence, optimism, and integrity, combined with an acute perception of the significance of his work.

            This is the most revealing and comprehensive biographical work yet available on a man known to be captivating as a thinker—and now shown to be equally fascinating as a human being. His own publications attest to his mind and methods; Voegelin Recollected provides a deeper understanding of the man himself.