24 h 19 minAudiobook15 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What makes us accept a ruler’s power—and what happens when no one can keep the peace?
In Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes builds his account of political power from the human body outward. Senses, appetites and fear lead him toward a stark question: how can people live together without turning against one another? His argument moves from what drives us to why we agree to be ruled.
Hobbes asks you to imagine life without a common power, where roughly equal people face a war of everyone against everyone. Against this danger, he sets the social contract and a sovereign with undivided power. Religion, protection and obedience all enter his account of what holds a commonwealth together.
What you’ll discover
- The body before politics Follow Hobbes from senses and appetites to the desires that shape our lives together.
- Life without a ruler Enter a thought experiment where human equality brings conflict rather than lasting peace.
- A covenant for peace Explore why Hobbes makes mutual agreement the foundation of a common power.
- The case for sovereignty Confront his argument that keeping the peace demands strong and undivided authority.
- Religion within the commonwealth Examine how Hobbes draws on the Bible in his argument about religion and rule.
Who will love it
For readers who love politics, history and philosophy, and anyone curious about the social contract, human nature and why we obey governments.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- People are bodies in motion
- Desire drives everything we do
- Nature makes us equal enough to fight
- Without government, life is war
- Reason finds laws that point to peace
- We build a sovereign by mutual covenant
- The sovereign must hold undivided power
- Religion belongs inside the commonwealth
- Hobbes divides readers but remains in the argument
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Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
by Thomas Hobbes · 1651
Hobbes builds a state from desire and fear, asking what people must give up to escape a war of all against all.
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In short
Leviathan is a work of political philosophy by Thomas Hobbes, an English thinker, published in 1651. He wrote it while England was torn by civil war and while he lived in exile in France.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
People are bodies in motion
Hobbes opens with a claim that shapes everything after it. Human beings, he says, are bodies like any other, and everything they do can be explained by matter in motion. He was a keen reader of the new science of his time, and he admired the way geometry moves from simple definitions to firm conclusions. He wants politics to work the same way.
He starts with sense. When an object presses on our eyes, ears or skin, the pressure travels inward and causes a motion in the brain and heart. That motion is what we call a sensation. Imagination is only the fading of that motion once the object is gone, and memory is the same thing seen from another side.
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What is Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes about?
It is a work of political philosophy that argues people need a strong sovereign to escape a violent state of nature. Hobbes builds the case from human psychology, a social contract and the need for undivided authority.
What does the Leviathan mean in Hobbes's book?
The Leviathan is the commonwealth itself. Hobbes takes the name from the sea monster in the Book of Job and pictures the state as an artificial giant made up of all its people under one sovereign.
When was Leviathan written and why?
Hobbes published it in 1651, after the English Civil War and the execution of Charles I. He wrote it to explain why governments are needed and why citizens owe them obedience.
The author
Thomas Hobbes
1588–1679 · English philosopher
Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher born in Westport, near Malmesbury, in 1588. He lived in England and spent several years in Paris. He wrote Leviathan, published in 1651, and other works on philosophy, politics, and geometry. He died at Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire in 1679.
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