Leviathan Hobbes Thomas (2014)

With an introduction by Dr Richard Serjeantson of Trinity College, Cambridge, this edition presents Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan, first published in 1651 and recognised as one of the most compelling and controversial works of political philosophy written in English. Forged in the civil and religious warfare of the mid-seventeenth century, it proposes a political theory combining an unequivocal commitment to natural human liberty with the conviction that sovereign government must exercise absolute power. Hobbes begins with deliberately naturalistic ideas: human nature is motivated by vanity and pride, while religion is understood as fear of invisible powers created by the mind. From these unpromising foundations, he constructs an elaborate, systematic and comprehensive account of how political society ought to be ordered, law-bound and peaceful. Leviathan portrays a state formed from the unified body of all its citizens as powerful, fruitful, protective of each member and, above all, free from internal violence.