Thomas Hobbes and Political Theory - Hardcover

The eight essays in this volume celebrated the 400th birthday of the English political thinker - Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes is one of a small number of political theorists in the Western tradition whose writings stirred debate in his own lifetime, for two centuries thereafter and continue to do so in ours. The essays in this volume share the interpretive premise that Hobbes was a political thinker and that his writings were political acts rather than scientific or ethical doctrines or logical deductive exercises. Their appearance signals a growing interest in the historical, contextual and cultural interpretation of Hobbes's political writings. His writings emerged in a period of intense political turmoil - a time of civil war and regicide, of puritanical rule and royal restoration. From a variety of interpretive perspectives, these essays aim to emphasize and answer a series of expressly political questions that, to date, have not been fully addressed in the Hobbes literature.