Eric Voegelin Today: Voegelins Political Thought in the 21st Century

(Hardback)

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This book analyzes Eric Voegelins scholarly works from the 1950s and early 1960s and examines the ways in which these works are relevant to the twenty-first century political environment. The collection of essays evaluated in this book cover a wide array of topics that were of great curiosity sixty years ago and still relevant in todays society. The authors in this volume demonstrate that Voegelins erudition on topics such as revolutionary change, ideological fervor, industrialization, globalism, and the place for reason and how it may be cultivated in complex times remains as meaningful today as it was then.

Reviews

Commentary on the work of Eric Voegelin has grown enormously since his death in 1985. This excellent collection of essays and analyses of Voegelins work published during the late 1950s and early 1960s adds greatly to our understanding of the development of his thought during this period and of its applicability to currently political realities. That it was written chiefly by younger scholars is further evidence of the enduring appeal of Voegelins political science. -- Barry Cooper, University of Calgary
Between 1940 and 1960 while he was working out his general theory of politics and history, Eric Voegelin also wrote a series of essays with a more pragmatic focus on democratization, empire, the good society, industrialization, science, and the possibility of moral communication in mass society. During this time he also moved to Munich in an effort to render socially effective the life of noetic reason in post-war Germany. Thus these essays are also examples of scholarly statecraft. The contributors to this volume follow his cues by considering those mid-career essays and reflecting pragmatically on contemporary political problems, including the current state of liberalism and progressivism, transhumanism, radical Islamism, and the state of the American polity. They admirably follow in Voegelins footsteps in bringing about clarity of awareness for scholar and citizen alike. -- John von Heyking, Professor of Political Science, University of Lethbridge
The essays in this volume furnish a superb account of Voegelins mature interventions as a public intellectual. His return to Germany resulted in more invitations to speak on matters of broad public interest and his concern with the ideological cleavages of the day provoked him to offer the fruits of his historical meditation in a more contemporary setting. The contributors to this collection have rightly grasped the continuing relevance of Voegelins thought in the increasingly ideological climate of our own time. Eric Voegelin for Today is both a work of philosophic retrieval and a work of civic remediation that is sorely needed. -- David Walsh, Catholic University of America

Author Bio

Scott Robinson is assistant professor of political science at Houston Baptist University. Lee Trepanier is professor of political science at Saginaw Valley State University. David Whitney is associate professor of political science at Nicholls State University