Eric Voegelin: The New Science of Politics

An Introduction

With a new Foreword by Dante Germino

The University of Chicago Press, 1987 (1952)     Amazon.com

Back Cover:

“Thirty-five years ago few could have predicted that The New Science of Politics would be a best-seller by political theory standards. Compressed within the Draconian economy of the six Walgreen lectures is a complete theory of man, society, and history, presented at the most profound and intellectual level…Voegelin’s [work] stands out in bold relief from much of what has passed under the name of political science in recent decades…The New Science is aptly titled, for Voegelin makes clear at the outset that a ‘return to the specific content’ of premodern political theory is out of the question…The subtitle of the book, An Introduction, clearly indicates that The New Science of Politics is an invitation to join the search for the recovery of our full humanity.”  From the new Foreword by Dante Germino

“This book must be considered one of the most enlightening essays on the character of European politics that has appeared in half a century…This is a book powerful and vivid enough to make agreement or disagreement with even its main thesis relatively unimportant.”  Times Literary Supplement

“Voegelin…is one of the most distinguished interpreters to Americans of the non-liberal streams of European thought…He brings a remarkable breadth of knowledge, and a historical imagination that ranges frequently into brilliant insights and generalizations.”  Francis G. Wilson, American Political Science Review

“This book is beautifully constructed…his erudition constantly brings a startling illumination.”  Martin Wright, International Affairs

“A lodestar to thinking men who seek a restoration of political science on the classic and Christian basis…a significant accomplishment in the retheorization of our age.”  Anthony Harrigan, Christian Century

Eric Voegelin (1901-1985) was Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution at the time of his death. He is the author of numerous books in addition to his major five-volume work Order and History.

JOB’s Comment:

See also Michael P. Federici: Eric Voegelin and (in Swedish) my introduction to Voegelin’s Vetenskap, politik och gnosticism. Among my own texts published in this blog, Voegelin is of importance not least for the unfinished series on person and differentiation in the Personalism category.