The first major piece of unpublished work by Leo Strauss to appear in more than thirty years, this volume offers the public the unprecedented experience of encountering this renowned scholar as his students did. Given as a course in autumn 1959 under the title "Plato's Political Philosophy," these provocative lectures—until now, never published, but instead passed down from one generation of students to the next—show Strauss at his subtle and insightful best.

Leo Strauss (1899-1973) was the Robert Maynard Hutchins Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Chicago. His many contributions to political philosophy include The Political Philosophy of Hobbes and On Tyranny, both published by the University of Chicago Press.

Seth Benardete (1930-2001) was professor of classics at New York University and the author, most recently, of Plato's "Laws": The Discovery of Being, also published by the University of Chicago Press.