On Tyranny

About this book

On Tyranny is Leo Strausss classic reading of Xenophons dialogue Hiero or Tyrannicus in which the tyrant Hiero and the poet Simonides discuss the advantages and disadvantages of exercising tyranny. This edition includes a translation of the dialogue a critique of the commentary by the French philosopher Alexandre Kojve Strausss restatement of his position in light of Kojves comments and finally the complete Strauss-Kojve correspondence. "Through Strausss interpretation Xenophon appears to us as no longer the somewhat dull and flat author we know but as a brilliant and subtle writer an original and profound thinker. What is more in interpreting this forgotten dialogue Strauss lays bare great moral and political problems that are still ours." Alexandre Kojve Critique "On Tyranny is a complex and stimulating book with its parallel dialogue made all the more striking since both participants take such unusual highly provocative positions and so force readers to face substantial problems in what are often wholly unfamiliar even shocking ways." Robert Pippin History and Theory "Every political scientist who tries to disentangle himself from the contemporary confusion over the problems of tyranny will be much indebted to this study and inevitably use it as a starting point."Eric Voegelin The Review of Politics Leo Strauss (1899-1973) was the Robert Maynard Hutchins Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago.