Tracing the concept of the open society- one based on the idea of a universal community of mankind- from its origins to the present day, Dante Germino reveals in this study the central role of openness in forming man's perception of himself and his world and presents n important new political theory of the open society. Political Philosophy and the Open Society begins with the definition of openness in its various meanings and with a description of the idea of the open society. Believing that ""an adequate theory of the open society must be grounded on the entire known history of mankind,"" Germino investigates the origins of the idea in myth, classical philosophy, Judeo-Christian revelation, and mysticism. He discusses the notion of the universal brotherhood of man as it appears in the works of classical Greek and Roman philosophers, including Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics, and then shows how that idea was distorted by the concept of universal empire as expressed by Alexander and later by the Romans. This philosophical struggle continued as the early Christians, Saint Augustine in particular, attempted to reconcile the political reality of a secular world empire with the spiritual reality of the universal kingdom of God, and it extended throughout the Middle Ages until the rise of the concept of the secular nation-state in the fifteenth century. Letting this historical background form the basis for his study, Germino works closely with the ideas of Henri Bergson and Eric Voeglin to advance his own theory of the open society. The first formulation of open society theory, Germino tells us, was by Bergson, whose The Two Sources of Morality and Religion defined a new morality of openness as epitomized in the Sermon on the Mount. And it is Voeglin, Germino asserts, who has done the most to reintroduce the reality of the spiritual dimension into contemporary discussion of politics and the ope n society. For Germino, Voeglin's distinction between ""universality"" and ""ecumenism"" must be at the core of any valid theory of the open society; and, in turn, a valid theory of the open society should be the centerpiece of any critical science of politics in our time. Concluding, then, that there must be an intimate connection between modern political philosophy and the concept of the open society, Germino calls for a far-reaching revision of the very idea of politics.

Dante Germino's biography of the Italian communist and political theorist Antonio Gramsci offers a major reassessment of this important twentieth-century thinker. Geromino analyzes Gramsci's remarkable life as well as his extensive oeuvre, from the early Turin articles to the meditative Prison Notebooks.

Gramsci saw society as composed of a small but powerful political center and a large body of emarginati -- marginalized people at the periphery of society, who are denied access to traditional positions of power. That vision led Gramsci to concentrate on the significance of the "common man" as he developed his theory Of the political organization of society, The persistent theme in Gramsci's work is how the ordinary man thinks, feels, and endures, and how the course of political institutions is shaped by the efforts of the marginalized to erode the boundaries of the center. Gramsci's approach is perhaps best expressed as a reunion of philosophy and experience and revaluation of the quotidian.

Gramsci's new politics of inclusion anticipated by well over a half-century the recent epoch-making developments in the USSR and in Eastern Europe. His anti-authoritarian leadership style as secretary of the Italian Communist party in the 1920s prefigured Gorbachev's policies of perestroika and glasnost. Gramsci's insistence on the international Communist movement's openness to new social formations at the grass roots is supremely relevant to developments in Romania, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and Poland, where forces hitherto kept at the margins of political life by ossified Communist-party structures have burst on the scene with unprecedented vitality.

Germino's compelling study ofGramsci's personal life and intellectual development offers fresh insights into Gramsci's work that will be of interest to all students of cultural and political theory, of particular interest is bas extensive consideration of the preprison writings both in their own right and for the light

In this book, 19 prominent representatives of each side in the basic division among Strauss's followers explore his contribution to political philosophy and Jewish thought. The volume presents the most extensive analysis yet published of Strauss's religious heritage and how it related to his work, and includes Strauss's previously unpublished 'Why We Remain Jews, ' an extraordinary essay concerned with the challenge posed to Judaism by modern secular thought. The extensive introduction interrelates the major themes of Strauss's thought