The challenge of political philosophy is to understand the best way to govern society. Leo Strauss’s reading of ancient and modern philosophers produced a master narrative, a history of ideas, featuring a ‘Socratic turn’ (when philosophy discarded the gods and began to focus on human nature and affairs) and a ‘Machiavellian turn’ (when the pursuit of virtue was lowered to accommodate how humans are commonly seen to behave). Positivism, which distinguishes between scientific fact and all other ‘values’, and historicism, which asserts ideas and events are chained to contemporary interpretation (and is now intertwined with postmodernism), threaten the tenets of this narrative because they tend to nihilism. The book features Strauss’s readings of leading figures and treats his practice of esotericism, which controversially asserts that many philosophers did not write what they really thought, but only left clues, due to threat of political persecution. A final section considers his practical politics and school of disciples. To be re-read.