The Allegiance of Thomas Hobbes

by Collins, Jeffrey R.

• ISBN13: 9780199237647
• ISBN10: 0199237646
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-01-10
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The Allegiance of Thomas Hobbes offers a revisionist interpretation of Thomas Hobbes's evolving response to the English Revolution. It rejects the prevailing understanding of Hobbes as a consistent, if idiosyncratic, royalist, and vindicates the contemporaneous view that the publication ofLeviathan marked Hobbes's accommodation with England's revolutionary regime. In sustaining these conclusions, Professor Collins foregrounds the religious features of Hobbes's writings, and maintains a contextual focus on the broader religious dynamics of the English Revolution itself. Hobbes and theRevolution are both placed within the tumultuous historical process that saw the emerging English state coercively secure jurisdictional control over national religion and the corporate church. Seen in the light of this history, Thomas Hobbes emerges as a theorist who moved with, rather thanagainst, the revolutionary currents of his age. The strongest claim of the book is that Hobbes was motivated by his deep detestation of clerical power to break with the Stuart cause and to justify the religious policies of England's post-regicidal masters, including Oliver Cromwell. Methodologically, Professor Collins supplements intellectual or linguistic contextual analysis with original research into Hobbes's biography, the prosopography of his associates, the reception of Hobbes's published works, and the nature of the English Revolution as a religious conflict. Thismulti-dimensional contextual approach produces, among other fruits: a new understanding of the political implications of Leviathan; an original interpretation of Hobbes's civil war history, Behemoth; a clearer picture of Hobbes's career during the neglected period of the 1650s; and a revisionistinterpretation of Hobbes's reaction to the emergence of English republicanism. By presenting Thomas Hobbes as a political actor within a precisely defined political context, Professor Collins has recovered the significance of Hobbes's writings as artefacts of the English Revolution.

Author Biography

Jeffrey R. Collins is an Assistant Professor of History at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. He received his PhD from Harvard University in 1999 and served, for three years, as a Harper Post-doctoral Fellow at the University of Chicago. He has published articles in Historical Journal, History, and Church History.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Thomas Hobbes and the Uses of Christianity

Hobbes, the Long Parliament, and the Church of England

Rise of the Independents

Leviathan and the Cromwellian Revolution

Hobbes among the Cromwellians

The Independents and the 'Religion of Thomas Hobbes'

Response of the Exiled Church

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index

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