The Political Philosophy of Hobbes

In this classic analysis, Leo Strauss pinpoints what is original and innovative in the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes. He argues that Hobbes´s ideas arose not from tradition or science but from his own deep knowledge and experience of human nature. Tracing the development of Hobbes´s moral doctrine from his early writings to his major work The Leviathan, Strauss explains contradictions in the body of Hobbes´s work and discovers startling connections between Hobbes and the thought of Plato, Thucydides, Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, and Hegel.