Among the works of the German-American philosopher Eric Voegelin it is primarily two that are known in Germany: his study The Political Religions, published in 1938, which in recent years received considerable public attention, and The New Science of Politics, in which Voegelin -- besides establishing a new philosophical rationale for political science -- expressed his critique on Western Modernity. Far less known is his comprehensive History of Political Ideas, on which he had worked restlessly from 1939 to 1952. There are manifold reasons for this. Probably the most important one: the text whose publication Voegelin declined during his life time, was only released posthumously, in the late 1990ies, within the framework of The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, published in eight volumes. The History is interesting in a two-fold way: First, in it Voegelin further developed, on a broad basis, the central thesis of the Political Religions, while at the same time it provides the background of The New Science of Politics. Second, it incorporates a self-contained philosophy as well as a critique on Western civilization, -- The essay at hand may serve as an introductory guide to both a conceptually and methodically most complex work. Adapted from the source document.