LEVIATHAN - Thrift Editions

Thomas Hobbes, an outspoken royalist, fled to France during the English Civil War. There he wrote this polemic, in which he calls for a powerful sovereign — a "Leviathan" — to act as an enforcer of peace and justice.
Hobbes's articulation of this long-contemplated philosophy of political and natural science was finally published in 1651, two years after the overthrow and execution of King Charles I. It met with a firestorm of controversy that included charges of treason and sedition, but survived to rank among the greatest works in the history of ideas.