Strauss, Leo (1899–1973)

Mark Bevir

Leo Strauss was an influential political theorist often associated with neoconservative ideas and their impact on U.S. politics. His parents were fairly conservative Jews, and his father ran a farming and livestock business. Strauss served in the German army at the end of World War I, before pursuing a doctorate at the University of Hamburg under the supervision of Ernst Cassirer. In 1932, he obtained a Rockefeller Fellowship that took him to Paris, where he married Miriam Bernshoh. With the rise of the Nazis, Strauss and his wife decided not to return to Germany, but to travel instead to Britain and then in 1937 on to the United States. Strauss worked at the New School for a decade. Then, in 1948, he took up a post as a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, where he remained until just before his retirement. Today, Strauss is often discussed ...

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