Leviathan

Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan is a foundational work of political philosophy advocating for a strong centralized government to prevent civil war and chaos. Leviathan argues that human life in a ‘state of nature’ is a brutal ‘war of all against all’ leading people to enter a social contract surrendering individual freedoms to an absolute sovereign for protection and order. Written during the English Civil War it proposes that individuals enter a social contract surrendering some freedoms for the security provided by a powerful government. The book explores the nature of man the necessity of the social contract and the structure of both civil and ecclesiastical government making a case for a powerful sovereign to ensure peace and order. Leviathan is considered a classic of political philosophy and one of the earliest and most influential examples of social contract theory.