Overview

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 Strauss’s 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 Strauss’s students, chastising their imputation of radically liberal theorizing to the Declaration and their ignorance of the meaning of “all men are created equal.” The Declaration’s 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 Jaffa is particularly critical of Allan Bloom and, in previously unpublished essays, Irving Kristol and Harvey Mansfield for their errors about America. Jaffa’s essays recover political philosophy in its political and philosophic dimensions so that it can be a continuing guide for our politics today.

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9781538122099

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Masugi and Erler's publication of selected mature essays of Harry V. Jaffa as the new Columbus rediscovering America is a critical addition to the opus of their teacher's life's work. This volume shows Jaffa as distinctively brilliant, trenchant, and tenacious - as always. -- Colleen A. Sheehan, Villanova University

Author Information

Edward J. Erler is Professor of Political Science emeritus at California State University, San Bernardino, and is a senior fellow of The Claremont Institute. He is the author of The American Polity: Essays on the Theory and Practice of Constitutional Government, co-author of The Founders on Citizenship and Immigration, and has published numerous articles in law reviews and professional journals. Among his most recent articles are “The Decline and Fall of the Right to Property: Government as Universal Landlord;” and “The Second Amendment as a Reflection of First Principles;” he has also published several articles in the Encyclopedia of the American Constitution. Dr. Erler was a member of the California Advisory Commission on Civil Rights from 1988-2006 and served on the California Constitutional Revision Commission in 1996. He has testified before the House and Senate Judiciary Committee on birthright citizenship, voting rights and other civil rights issues. Ken Masugi is a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Claremont Institute. He teaches graduate courses for Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Advanced Studies in American Government in Washington, DC, and has held positions at a variety of universities and college programs, including a federal prison and Princeton University. He taught for three years at the U.S. Air Force Academy, where he was John M. Olin Distinguished Visiting Professor. Masugi has also served in the federal government for ten years, as a special assistant and speechwriter to the heads of the Departments of Labor and Justice and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. He is the co-author, co-editor, or editor of 10 books on American politics and author of over 100 articles and reviews on American politics, political philosophy, constitutional development, and films. Harry V. Jaffa (1918-2015) was a Distinguished Fellow of the Claremont Institute, and the author of numerous articles and books, including his widely acclaimed study of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Crisis of the House Divided: An Interpretation of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates (University of Chicago Press, 1959). Dr. Jaffa was a Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College and the Claremont Graduate School. He received his B.A. from Yale in 1939, where he majored in English, and holds a Ph.D. from the New School for Social Research. His other books include Thomism and Aristotelianism (Greenwood Press, 1979); The Conditions of Freedom (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975), How to Think About the American Revolution (Carolina Academic Press, 1978); American Conservatism and the American Founding (Carolina Academic Press, 1982); Original Intent and the Framers of the Constitution: A Disputed Question (Regnery Gateway, 1994); and A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War (Rowman & Littlefield, 2000). Professor Jaffa's last published work was Crisis of the Strauss Divided: Essays on Leo Strauss and Straussianism, East and West (Rowman & Littlefield, 2012).

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