A Straussian (i.e., Socratic) argument for resurrecting Classical republican approaches to citizenship and education in America circa 1990. Postmodernist thought is insufficient to the task of civic education because it considers itself in search of a successor to modern rationalism, and so cannot present youth with a certain basis of inquiry and evaluation. (This school of thought, a dying spasm of Marxism exemplified by Jean-Francois Leotard, is indeed likely to never emerge because it corrupts Nietzsche and Heidegger.) The book then turns to an extensive, fast-moving comparison of modern and ancient conceptions of the republic and democracy, finding the dialectic method is necessary to restore American civic mindedness and also the US university; however, Pangle is careful to underline that the dialectic is dangerous for the under-prepared.