Annotated Review Essay on Laurence Lampert's Beijing Lectures

Abstract

A detailed review of Laurence Lampert’s Beijing Lectures on Leo Strauss, Plato, and Nietzsche (delivered in 2015) highlights how the book distills a lifetime of Lampert’s scholarship (1941–2024) on the trio. His earlier works—imaginative, meticulous, and elegantly written though often lengthy—are here rendered in a more accessible form: tightly focused, architecturally clear, syntactically simple, and without footnotes. My review therefore provides citations for the many sources Lampert draws on. Subtitled “Philosophy and Its Poetry,” the lectures argue that all three thinkers depict great philosophers as moving from rigorous ontological inquiry to crafting political-theological teachings that harmonize with reality. Lampert relies on Strauss’s recovery of the multilayered, sometimes secretive “art of writing” used by Plato and others to navigate their societies and advance future-oriented aims. While summarizing the chapters on each author, my review adds context, raises a few objections, and considers the book’s implications for elevating readers and informing philanthropic efforts, especially in environmentalism.