This second volume of Voegelin's magisterial Order and History, The World of the Polis, explores the ancient Greek symbolization of human reality. Taking us from the origins of Greek culture in the Pre-Homeric Cretan civilizations, through the Iliad and Odyssey, Hesiod, and the rise of philosophy with the Pre-Socratics Parmenides and Heraclitus, this masterful work concludes with the historians of the classical period. In The World of the Polis, Voegelin traces the emergence of the forms of the city-state and of philosophy from the ancient symbolism of myth. He maintains that the limits and ultimate goals of human nature are constant and that the central problem of every society is the same—"to create an order that will endow the fact of its existence with meaning in terms of ends divine and human." Thus, Voegelin shows how "the meaning of existence" achieved concrete expression in the typical political, social, and religious institutions of Greece and in the productions of its poets and thinkers. He deals with more than fifty Greek writers in the course of his analysis of the rise of myth and its representation of the divine order of the cosmos as the first great symbolic form of order, one later supplanted by the leap in being reflected in the emergence of philosophy. The book is a tour de force, a virtuoso performance by a scholar and philosopher of great power, learning, and imagination that places its subject matter in a new light. The editor's critical introduction places The World of the Polis in the broader context of Voegelin's philosophy of history. Scholars and students of political science, philosophy, and the history of ideas will find this work invaluable.

这是沃格林的巨著《秩序与历史》的第二卷，《政体的世界》探讨了古希腊对人类现实的象征。这部杰出的作品带领我们从希腊文化的起源--前希腊克里特文明，到《伊利亚特》和《奥德赛》、赫西奥德，以及前苏格拉底人巴门尼德和赫拉克利特的哲学崛起，最后以古典时期的历史学家作结。在《政体的世界》中，沃格林追溯了城邦和哲学的形式从古代神话的象征主义中产生的过程。他认为，人性的局限和终极目标是不变的，每个社会的核心问题都是一样的，即 "创造一种秩序，使其存在的事实具有神圣和人类目的的意义"。因此，沃格林展示了 "存在的意义 "是如何在希腊的典型政治、社会和宗教机构中以及在其诗人和思想家的作品中得到具体表达的。他在分析神话的兴起及其对宇宙神性秩序的表述的过程中，涉及了50多位希腊作家，作为第一种伟大的象征性秩序形式，一种后来被反映在哲学的出现中的飞跃所取代的形式。该书是一场巡回演出，是一位具有强大实力、学识和想象力的学者和哲学家的精湛表演，将其主题置于一个新的角度。编辑的批评性介绍将《政体的世界》置于沃格林的历史哲学的更广泛的背景中。政治学、哲学和思想史的学者和学生将发现这部作品的价值。