The denial of Locke's debt to Hobbes has long been characteristic of many scholars of Locke influenced by the Cambridge School. Peter Laslett was the first to argue for this view, and he did so in conscious opposition to Leo Strauss and his interpretation of Locke. The recent discovery by Felix Waldmann of a memoir that confirms Locke's deep interest in Hobbes as well as his prudent concealment of that interest has undermined Laslett's case against Strauss. Waldmann's discovery, moreover, comes in the wake of other historical work, by Jeffrey Collins and others, that has provided further grounds for abandoning the Cambridge view of Locke. These developments have yet to lead to a serious reengagement with Strauss's interpretation of Locke, but they should, because his controversial claim about Locke's debt to Hobbes has been vindicated.

Leo Strauss is most well known for his thesis on the philosophic practice of exotericism. One of strangest aspects of his work is the amount of attention he devoted to Xenophon. This article attempts to explain how these two important facets of Strauss's thought are connected by examining their connection in his first published treatment of them both: “The Spirit of Sparta or the Taste of Xenophon.”

J. G. A. Pocock's Machiavellian Moment has become an authoritative source for our understanding of the republican tradition, the place Aristotle holds as its founder, and its adversarial relation to liberalism. In this article it is argued that Pocock exaggerates the republican character of Aristotle's thought in a way that ignores the extent to which stability and prosperity, as opposed to the kind of virtue fostered by political participation, are among the chief practical ends of the Politics. This suggests that Pocock's strict opposition between republican and liberal “paradigms” is an artificial and distorting imposition on the tradition, one more apt to limit than to broaden our understanding of the fundamental alternatives it contains.

While recent scholarship has provoked renewed interest in the Education of Cyrus as an important work for our understanding of the origins of classical political philosophy, it has yet to produce a coherent interpretation that preserves the unity of Xenophon's vision of political life. Following a short review of three recent books on the subject, I argue that the obstacles in the way to such an understanding can be resolved by focusing on the underlying causes in Xenophon's account of the transformation of a republican regime into a universal empire and, in particular, on the various deficiencies and self-contradictions of the republican conception of the common good. I show how an understanding of Xenophon's analysis of virtue within both republican and imperial political orders can lead to a fruitful confrontation with the thought of his most famous student, admirer, and antagonist, Machiavelli.