Leo Strauss and Islamic Political Thought

24. Sheehan, 144. 25. As Sheehan points out, this high-minded justification, though widely resonant with the populations of modern democratic nation-states, can lead to serious conflicts in the pursuit of legibility (see, for example, the mass transfer of populations in Europe following World War II, the long and bloody wars of national liberation in Algeria and Angola, or the numerous slow-burning crises in the Balkans and Eastern Europe). This is one reason the nation-state may be a “problem,” as in the subtitle of the book. 26. Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President in Address to European Youth,” transcript of speech delivered at Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels, Belgium, March 26, 2014. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-pressoffice/2014/03/26/remarks-presiden t-address-European-youth 27. Sheehan, 115–61. 28. Sheehan, 166. 29. Sheehan, 165. This is the English title of Manent’s 2001 book. 30. Pierre Manent, Democracy Without Nations? The Fate of Self-Government in Europe, trans. Paul Seaton (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2007), 14. 31. Manent, “Modern Democracy as a System of Separations,” 114. 32. Sheehan, 164.