Leviathan

'He that is to govern a whole Nation, must read in?himself, not this, or that particular man; but Man-kind.'

Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan?is not just one of the greatest philosophical?texts in the English language; it is one of the most important works in the?history of Western political thought. Almost every major tradition in the?centuries after Hobbes - from radical democracy to authoritarianism - has?been influenced by its arguments. Written in exile in a period of dramatic?developments - civil war and regicide - Leviathan?is in some ways the?product of its own special circumstances. And yet, at the same time, ?it deals with fundamental issues that matter to all of us today: the nature?and purpose of the state, the relation between human nature and politics, ?the idea of natural rights, the justification of authority, the concept of?representation, the nature of sovereignty, the limits of obedience, and?the relationship between religious obligations and human ones.

This new edition offers a definitive text drawn from more than twenty?years of research by Noel Malcolm, including, in English translation, all?the most significant revisions made in Hobbes's later Latin translation of Leviathan, as well as extensive explanatory notes that elucidate Hobbes's?language and identify the many Biblical, classical, and other allusions?that are scattered through his text.

Author: Thomas Hobbes, Noel Malcolm
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 12/12/2024
Pages: 832
Binding Type: Paperback
ISBN: 9780192868749

About the Author
Thomas Hobbes

Noel Malcolm studied History and English Literature at Peterhouse, Cambridge. He began his career as a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge; he was then political columnist and, subsequently, Foreign Editor of the Spectator. In 1999 he was a lecturer at Harvard and gave the Carlyle Lectures at Oxford in 2001. Since 2002 he has been a Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, and at Cambridge an Honorary Fellow of Peterhouse, Trinity, and Gonville and Caius. He was knighted in 2014 for services to scholarship, journalism, and European history.