 Modernity
Without Restraint : The Political Religions, the New Science of
Politics, and Science, Politics, and Gnosticism (Collected
Works of Eric Voegelin)
by Eric
Voegelin, Manfred Henningsen (Editor)
Published together for the first time in one volume are
Eric Voegelin's Political Religions, The New Science of Politics,
and Science, Politics, and Gnosticism. Political Religions
was first published in 1938 in Vienna, the year of Voegelin's forced
emigration from Austria to the United States. The New Science of
Politics was written in 1952 and established Voegelin's reputation
as a political philosopher in America. Science, Politics, and
Gnosticism was Voegelin's Inaugural Lecture at the University of
Munich in 1958 and introduced him to the West German intellectual
public.
Although these books were written during remarkably
different historical circumstances of Voegelin's life, all three present
an analysis of modern Western civilization that has lost its spiritual
foundations and is challenged by various ideological persuasions.
Voegelin critiques in these texts a "modernity without
restraint." It is a modernity with Hegelian, Marxian, Nietzschean,
Heideggerian, positivist, Fascist, and other predominantly German
characteristics. The author confronts this modernity with Western
meaning as it emerged in ancient Greece, Rome, Israel, and Christianity
and became transformed in the European Middle Ages, the Italian
Renaissance, and the Anglo- American political formation.
This three-in-one volume delves into the intellectual
and spiritual complications of modernity, tracing its evolution from the
ancient civilizations to the twentieth century. In his substantial new
introduction, Manfred Henningsen explores the experiential background
that motivated Voegelin's theoretical analyses and the new relevance
that his work has gained in recent years with the unexpected collapse of
state socialism in East Germany, Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union. Modernity
without Restraint will be a valuable addition to intellectual
history and Voegelin studies.
About the Author
Eric Voegelin (1901-1985) was one of the most original
and influential philosophers of our time. Born in Cologne, Germany, he
studied at the University of Vienna, where he became a professor of
political science in the Faculty of Law. In 1938, he and his wife,
fleeing Hitler, emigrated to the United States. They became American
citizens in 1944. Voegelin spent much of his career at Louisiana State
University, the University of Munich, and the Hoover Institution at
Stanford University. During his lifetime he published many books and
more than one hundred articles. The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin
will make available in a uniform edition all of Voegelin's major
writings. Click
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