Two Treatises Of Government (Everyman) - Softcover

Peter Laslett's edition of Locke's "Two Treatises of Government" is widely recognised as one of the classic pieces of recent scholarship in the history of ideas, and has been read and used by students of politcal theory throughout the world. Dr. Laslett demonstrated that the version usually cited was in no way a representation of that 'text for posterity' Locke left behind, and exhaustive analysis of Lock's private papers and personal library caused Dr. Laslett radically to alter the received notion that the "Two Treatises" were in any sense a rationalization of the events of 1688: Locke's texts were rather a call for a revolution yet to come.

John Locke laid the groundwork of modern liberalism. He argued that political societies exist to defend the lives, liberties, and properties of their citizens, and that no government has any authority except by the consent of the people. When rulers become tyrants and act against the common good, then the people have a right of revolution against them. Writing against the backdrop of Charles II's savage purge of the Whig movement, Locke set out to attack monarchical absolutism and demolished the intellectual fabric of the divine right of rulers.