By far the best book on Strauss is Shadia Drury's 1988 The Political Ideas of Leo Strauss. It may be that part of its excellence is related to her awareness that there is a sense in which no woman could be a Straussian. In fact, Strauss said that no woman could be a philosopher. But, for many of the bright young boys, or men, their purpose for studying with Strauss was to become "philosophers."
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Actually one of my teachers and dissertation advisers at Michigan was Arlene Saxonhouse, a woman (and feminist!) Straussian and Strauss student. She was not a reactionary creep like the old man, but she used Straussian reading techniques. She was very fair with me; I thought I was a Leninist at the time, and did a Strauss-(or anyway Saxonhouse-) style reading of The State and Revolution. She didn't bat an eye. She has a good little book on Women in Ancient Greek thought. Gave me a wholly distorted idea of what Straussianism was about.
I recommend Drury; haven't read the Political Ideas book, but Leo Strauss and the American Right is a fine book. jks
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