num_pages: 736
description: 'The life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short'Written during the chaos of the English Civil War, Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan asks how, in a world of violence and horror, can we stop ourselves from descending into anarchy? Hobbes' case for a 'common-wealth' under a powerful sovereign - or 'Leviathan' - to enforce security and the rule of law, shocked his contemporaries, and his book was publicly burnt for sedition the moment it was published. But his penetrating work of political philosophy - now fully revised and with a new introduction for this edition - opened up questions about the nature of statecraft and society that influenced governments across the world.
language: English
title: Leviathan
titlecomplete: Leviathan
genres: Academic, Political Science, 17th Century, Law, Politics, Philosophy, School, Classics, Nonfiction, History
ratings_count: 46060
publisher: Penguin Books