The Rediscovery of America: Essays by Harry V. Jaffa on the New Birth of Politics (Claremont Institute Series on Statesmanship and Political Ph)

About this book

Harry V. Jaffa (1918-2015) one of the profoundest political thinkers of his time is known most prominently for his pathbreaking work on Abraham Lincoln. Jaffa who taught for 50 years at the Claremont Colleges and was a Distinguished Fellow of the Claremont Institute sought to produce a revolution in political philosophy by applying Strausss controversial thinking about natural right Scripture and human greatness to American politics. In these 10 essays beginning in the 1980s Jaffa rediscovered the moral and intellectual complexity of statesmanship in particular that of Lincoln and the American founders. The essays reveal the profundity of the Declaration of Independence in observations both theoretical (e.g. Aristotle and Aquinas) and practical (e.g. campus radicalism). Jaffa takes aim at the interpretations of America made by some of Leo Strausss students chastising their imputation of radically liberal theorizing to the Declaration and their ignorance of the meaning of all men are created equal. The Declarations radicalism lies rather in its synthesis of ancient political philosophy and Scriptural authority on the good human life. Jaffa is particularly critical of Allan Bloom and in previously unpublished essays Irving Kristol and Harvey Mansfield for their errors about America. Jaffas essays recover political philosophy in its political and philosophic dimensions so that it can be a continuing guide for our politics today.