Eric Voegelin
Life

Biography in brief

  • 1901 Voegelin is born on January 3 in Cologne as Erich Voegelin.
  • 1910 The Voegelin family moves to Vienna.
  • 1919 Begins studies at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Vienna.
  • 1922 Receives doctorate (Dr. rer. pol.) with a thesis supervised by Hans Kelsen and Othmar Spann (Interaction and Division: A Method-Critical Investigation).
  • 1924 Goes to the USA as a Rockefeller Foundation fellow for two years, studying with John Dewey, Alfred N. Whitehead, and John R. Commons; followed by a one-year study stay in France (Sorbonne).
  • 1928 *On the Form of the American Mind*, Voegelin's habilitation thesis, is published.
  • 1929 Serves as private lecturer in political theory and sociology at the University of Vienna.
  • 1932 Marries Lissy Oncken (1906–1996) on June 30.
  • 1933 Publishes *Race and State* and *The Idea of Race in the History of Ideas*.
  • 1936 Publishes *The Authoritarian State*; appointed associate professor of political theory and sociology in Vienna.
  • 1938 Publishes *The Political Religions*; leaves Austria after the Anschluss and emigrates to the USA, teaching at various universities until becoming Professor of Government at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, in 1942.
  • 1944 Becomes a US citizen.
  • 1952 *The New Science of Politics*, the elaborated version of Voegelin’s 1951 Walgreen Lectures, is published (German translation follows in 1959).
  • 1956–1957 The first three volumes of *Order and History* are published: Vol. 1: *Israel and Revelation*, Vol. 2: *The World of the Polis*, Vol. 3: *Plato and Aristotle*.
  • 1958 Returns to Europe; becomes the first professor of political science at Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich.
  • 1959 *Science, Politics and Gnosis*, text of his Munich inaugural lecture, is published.
  • 1966 *Anamnesis. On the Theory of History and Politics* is published.
  • 1969 Retires and returns to the USA; serves until 1974 as Henri Salvatory Distinguished Fellow, then as Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford.
  • 1974 Fourth volume of *Order and History* is published: *The Ecumenic Age*.
  • 1985 Eric Voegelin dies on January 19.
  • 1987 Fifth and final, unfinished volume of *Order and History* is published posthumously: *In Search of Order*.
  • 1990–2009 Publication of the 34-volume *Collected Works of Eric Voegelin* in the USA, including Voegelin’s unpublished *History of Political Ideas* from the 1940s.
  • 2001–2005 German translation of Voegelin’s main work, *Ordnung und Geschichte*, published in ten volumes.

Michael Henkel
(based on Michael Henkel, Eric Voegelin: An Introduction, 2nd, revised edition, Hamburg 2010, pp. 210–211)