Hobbes and Republican Liberty

by Quentin Skinner

• ISBN13: 9780521714167
• ISBN10: 0521714168
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-03-03
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Quentin Skinner is one of the foremost historians in the world, and in Hobbes and Republican Liberty he offers a dazzling comparison of two rival theories about the nature of human liberty. The first originated in classical antiquity, and lay at the heart of the Roman republican tradition of public life. Thomas Hobbes was the most formidable enemy of this pattern of thought, and his successive attempts to discredit it constitute a truly epochal moment in the history of Anglophone political thought. Hobbes and Republican Liberty develops several of the themes announced by Quentin Skinner in his celebrated inaugural lecture on Liberty before Liberalism of 1997. Cogent, engaged, accessible, and indeed exhilarating, this new book will appeal to readers of history, politics, and philosophy at all levels from upper-undergraduate upwards, and provides an excellent introduction to the work of one of the most celebrated thinkers of our time.

Author Biography

Quentin Skinner is the Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Christ's College

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	p. vi
Preface	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xvii
Notes on the text	p. xxii
Introductory: Hobbes's humanist beginnings	p. 1
The Elements of Law: liberty described	p. 18
The Elements of Law: liberty circumscribed	p. 56
De cive: liberty defined	p. 82
Leviathan: liberty redefined	p. 124
Liberty and political obligation	p. 178
Conclusion	p. 211
Bibliography	p. 217
Index	p. 237
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