ABSTRACT
Of all the interpretive approaches featured in this volume, Straussianism is second to none in evoking curiosity and suspicion among academics and the educated public. Only Marxism at conservative American institutions provokes a similar response. Indeed, as American political culture has moved further to the right in recent decades, the writings of Leo Strauss have grown more controversial. While left-wing approaches were arguably marginalized around the turn of the twentyfirst century, journalists and academics suspected Straussianism of exercising a powerful yet subterranean influence on American politics through students of Strauss who went on to assume influential positions in government and academia.1
