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This book is a culmination of the fascination with and critical admiration for the thought of Leo Strauss that I have had since first encountering him when I was an undergraduate, through the teaching of George Grant and of Robert Eden when both were at Dalhousie University. I have thought and taught and written about Leo Strauss for nearly forty years. I am so grateful for the teachers, colleagues, and students who have supported in so many ways my effort to understand this most evasive of thinkers. I must especially acknowledge two intersecting intellectual centers: the University of King’s College and the Classics Department of Dalhousie University, together so fundamental to my intellectual formation, and the home for my thinking about Strauss.

There are specific colleagues and friends who have contributed directly to this book’s composition by reading drafts of chapters and aiding and correcting my thinking and understanding of Strauss: Daniel Brandes, Eli Diamond, Susan Dodd, Mark Henrie, Ken Kierans, Simon Kow, David Peddle, and Henry Roper. I am also very much in the debt of the anonymous reviewers who gave such helpful corrections and suggestions to aid in the final reworking of the book. I am deeply grateful to George Owers and Julia Davies of Polity Press for the invitation to write this book and the care and consideration they have shown both it and me over its somewhat delayed emergence.

This book was made possible by six months’ leave of absence from my work as Director of the Foundation Year Program at the University of King’s College in Halifax, Nova Scotia. For the astonishing generosity of my colleagues, above all Susan Dodd who stepped in so graciously to take over my duties, I am deeply thankful: it is the most perfect affirmation of the collegiality in our little institution and in the program that is its heart. I am grateful as well to our President and Vice-President, and to the Board of Governors, for granting me this unplanned leave. The support of the University of King’s College Library has also been an enormous help in the writing of this book.

However, the person who must be acknowledged beyond all others is my wife and the endlessly patient yet challenging editor of all the writing of this book. Whatever clarity, articulacy, or poise belongs to it is entirely due to her extraordinary care, skill, and talent with language. She has been aided in supporting me through this consuming task by my two wondrous daughters.

Neil G. Robertson

March 2021