About the AuthorEric Voegelin (1901-1985) was one of the most original and influential philosophers of our time. Born in Cologne, Germany, he studied at the University of Vienna, where he became a professor of political science in the Faculty of Law. In 1938, he and his wife, fleeing Hitler, immigrated to the United States. They became American citizens in 1944. Voegelin spent much of his career at Louisiana State University, the University of Munich, and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. During his lifetime he published many books and more than one hundred articles. "The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin" will make available in a uniform edition all of Voegelin's major writings. About the EditorEllis Sandoz, Hermann Moyse Jr. Distinguished Professor of Political Science, is Director of the Eric Voegelin Institute for American Renaissance Studies at Louisiana State University. He is the general editor of Voegelin's "History of Political Ideas" and author or editor of numerous books, including The Politics of Truth and Other Untimely Essays: The Crisis of Civic Consciousness, available from the University of Missouri Press.

The period covered by the essays published in this volume marks the transition in Eric Voegelin's career from Louisiana to Munich. The themes most prominent here reflect the concerns of this transition and the development of Voegelin's understanding of the stratification of reality.