History of Political Ideas

* Book: History of Political Ideas, Vol. I-VIII. Eric Voegelin. The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin. University of Missouri Press, 1997

Directory

• Volume 19: History of Political Ideas, Volume I, Hellenism, Rome, and Early Christianity, edited by Athanisios Moulakis
• Volume 20: History of Political Ideas, Volume II, The Middle Ages to Aquinas, edited by Peter von Sivers
• Volume 21: History of Political Ideas, Volume III, The Later Middle Ages, edited by David Walsh
• Volume 22: History of Political Ideas, Volume IV, Renaissance and Reformation, edited by David L. Morse and William M. Thompson
• Volume 23: History of Political Ideas, Volume V, Religion and the Rise of Modernity, edited by James L. Wiser
• Volume 24: History of Political Ideas, Volume VI, Revolution and the New Science, edited by Barry Cooper
• Volume 25: History of Political Ideas, Volume VII, The New Order and Last Orientation, edited by Jürgen Gebhardt and Thomas A. Hollweck
• Volume 26: History of Political Ideas, Volume VIII, Crisis and the Apocalypse of Man, edited by David Walsh

Contents

Vol I: Hellenism, Rome, and Early Christianity

* Book: History of Political Ideas, Volume 1 (CW19). Hellenism, Rome, and Early Christianity. Eric Voegelin and ed. by Athanasios Moulakis.

URL = https://upress.missouri.edu/9780826211262/history-of-political-ideas-volume-1-cw19/

"Reaching from the decline of the Greek Polis to Saint Augustine, this first volume of Eric Voegelin's eagerly anticipated History of Political Ideas fills the gap left between volumes 3 and 4 of Order and History. The heart of the book is the powerful account of Apostolic Christianity's political implications and the work of the early church fathers. Voegelin's consideration of the political philosophy of Rome and his unique analysis of Greek and early Roman law are of particular interest.

Although History of Political Ideas was begun as a textbook for Macmillan, Voegelin never intended it to be a conventional "synthesis." He sought instead an original comprehensive interpretation, founded on primary materials and taking into account the most advanced specialist scholarship—or science as he called it—available to him. Because of this, the book grew well beyond the confines of an easily marketable college survey and until now remained unpublished.

In the process of writing it, Voegelin himself outgrew the conceptual frame of a "History of Political Ideas," turning to compose Order and History and the other works of his maturity. History of Political Ideas became the ordered collection of materials from which much of Voegelin's later theoretical elaboration grew, structured in a manner that reveals the conceptual intimations of his later thought. As such, it provides an unparalleled opportunity to observe the working methods and the intellectual evolution of one of our century's leading political thinkers. In its embracing scope, History of Political Ideas contains both analyses of themes Voegelin developed in his later works and discussions of authors and ideas to which he did not return or which he later approached from a different angle and with a different emphasis.

In Hellenism, Rome, and Early Christianity, Voegelin demonstrates that the "spiritual disintegration" of the Hellenic world inaugurated a long process of transition in the self- understanding of Mediterranean and European man. The reflections that emerge remain universal concerns regarding the order of human existence in society and history. Although one may come to different conclusions, Voegelin's responses to the problems of the period suggest avenues of investigation that are still little traveled."

Vol. 2: The Middle Ages to Aquinas

* Book: History of Political Ideas, Volume 2 (CW20). The Middle Ages to Aquinas. By Eric Voegelin, ed. by Peter von Sivers. University of Missouri Press, 1998

URL = https://upress.missouri.edu/9780826211422/history-of-political-ideas-volume-2-cw20/

"Voegelin's magisterial account of medieval political thought opens with a survey of the structure of the period and continues with an analysis of the Germanic invasions, the fall of Rome, and the rise of empire and monastic Christianity. The political implications of Christianity and philosophy in the period are elaborated in chapters devoted to John of Salisbury, Joachim of Flora (Fiore), Frederick II, Siger de Brabant, Francis of Assisi, Roman law, and climaxing in a remarkable study of Saint Thomas Aquinas's mighty thirteenth-century synthesis.

Although History of Political Ideas was begun as a textbook for Macmillan, Voegelin never intended it to be a conventional chronological account. He sought instead an original comprehensive interpretation, founded on primary materials and taking into account the most advanced specialist scholarship—or science as he called it—available to him. Because of this, the book grew well beyond the confines of an easily marketable college survey and until now remained unpublished.

In the process of writing it, Voegelin himself outgrew the conceptual frame of a "History of Political Ideas," turning to compose Order and History and the other works of his maturity. History of Political Ideas became the ordered collection of materials from which much of Voegelin's later theoretical elaboration grew, structured in a manner that reveals the conceptual intimations of his later thought. As such, it provides an unparalleled opportunity to observe the working methods and the intellectual evolution of one of our century's leading political thinkers. In its embracing scope, History of Political Ideas contains both analyses of themes Voegelin developed in his later works and discussions of authors and ideas to which he did not return or which he later approached from a different angle and with a different emphasis.

The Middle Ages to Aquinas has withstood the test of time. What makes it still highly valuable is its thoroughly revisionist approach, cutting through all the convenient clichés and generalizations and seeking to establish the experiential underpinnings that typified the medieval period."

Vol. 3: The Later Middle Ages

* Book: History of Political Ideas, Volume 3 (CW21). The Later Middle Ages. By Eric Voegelin. Ed. by David Walsh.

"In The Later Middle Ages, the third volume of his monumental History of Political Ideas, Eric Voegelin continues his exploration of one of the most crucial periods in the history of political thought. Illuminating the great figures of the high Middle Ages, Voegelin traces the historical momentum of our modern world in the core evocative symbols that constituted medieval civilization. These symbols revolved around the enduring aspiration for the sacrum imperium, the one order capable of embracing the transcendent and immanent, the ecclesiastical and political, the divine and human. The story of the later Middle Ages is that of the "civilizational schism"—the movement in which not only the reality but the aspiration for the sacrum imperium gradually disappeared and the unification of faith and reason dissolved.

His recognition of this civilizational schism provides Voegelin with a unique perspective on medieval society. William of Ockham, Dante, Giles of Rome, and Marsilius of Padua all emerge in Voegelin's study as predecessors to modern thought; each turns to personal authority and intellectual analysis in an attempt to comprehend the loss of the sacrum imperium as an authoritative ideal. Voegelin is further drawn into investigations that, despite insufficient attention by scholars, still bear relevance to the study of the later Middle Ages. The mysticism apparent in Piers Plowman and the apocalyptic revolt of Cola di Rienzo are merely two reactions to the disintegration of wholeness.

Yet the story of the later Middle Ages does not merely revolve around disintegration. Voegelin recognizes the emergence of the constitutional political tradition as the most positive development of this period. He is at his best when explaining the difference between the presence of a representative institution and the growth of communal consciousness. Voegelin's study of the English political pattern is matched only by his unique perspective on the German imperial zone, culminating in a fitting conclusion on Nicholas of Cusa—the one political thinker with the ability to evoke the unity of mankind beyond fragmentation.

The Later Middle Ages is at once a brilliant examination of the symbols that characterized medieval society and a remarkable predecessor to Voegelin's study of the modern world, beginning with the Renaissance and the Reformation."