Major Works

• Leviathan, or the Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil [1651]

  - Hackett, 1994 (Edwin Curley, ed.)
  The Leviathan is Hobbes’s masterwork, published in 1651. It contains four parts: “Of Man,” “Of Commonwealth,” “Of a Christian Commonwealth,” and “Of the Kingdom of Darkness.” “Of Man” connects… More

• The Elements of Philosophy: De Cive

  - Hackett, 1991 (Bernard Gert, ed. -- contains De Cive and selections of De Homine)
  The Elements of Philosophy is composed of three parts, not published in their intended order. De Cive, published in 1642, was Hobbes’s first definitive articulation of his political philosophy. It includes Hobbes’s account of the state of nature and the… More

• Of Liberty and Necessity and Selections from Questions concerning Liberty, Necessity, and Chance [1654-1656]

  - Cambridge University Press, 1999 (Hobbes and Bramhall on Liberty and Necessity, Vere Chappell, ed.)
  This volume presents an exchange between Hobbes and the Anglican cleric John Bramhall.  Hobbes and Bramhall debate questions such as whether human beings can act freely, what freedom means, whether freedom and material determination can coexist, and how… More

Commentary

• Hobbes’s Critique of Religion and Related Writings

  - Leo Strauss (Gabriel Bartlett and Svetozar Minkov, trans., University of Chicago Press, 2011)
  In The Political Philosophy of Hobbes Strauss argues that the basis for Hobbes’s natural and political science is his interest in “self-knowledge of man as he really is.”  The writings collected in this book, each written prior to that classic… More

• The Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas Hobbes: Meaning and Failure of a Political Symbol [1938]

  - Carl Schmitt (George Schwab and Erna Hilfstein, trans., The University of Chicago Press, 2008)
  One of the most significant political philosophers of the twentieth century, Carl Schmitt is a deeply controversial figure who has been labeled both Nazi sympathizer and modern-day Thomas Hobbes. First published in 1938, The Leviathan in the State Theory of… More

• “On the Basis of Hobbes’ Political Philosophy” [1959]

  - Leo Strauss, in What is Political Philosophy? and Other Studies (University of Chicago Press, 1988), pp. 170-196
  Excerpt: In a word, by trying to give reasons for unqualified submission to authority, Hobbes makes impossible unqualified submission to authority; by appealing from authority to reason, as Socrates did, he is forced to repeat what he regarded as Socrates’s… More

• The Rhetoric of Leviathan

  - David Johnston (Princeton University Press, 1989)
  Contending that modern readers do Leviathan an injustice by neglecting its metaphysical and theological themes, David Johnston supports his claim with a detailed examination of the text as a whole and with a reinterpretation of the genesis of the work.

• “Time, History, and Eschatology in the Thought of Thomas Hobbes”

  - J. G. A. Pocock, in Politics, Language and Time: Essays on Political Thought and History (Chicago University Press, 1989), pp. 148-201
  A study of Hobbes by a leading member of the “Cambridge School” of political theory.

• Perspectives on Thomas Hobbes

  - G. A. J. Rogers and Alan Ryan, eds. (Oxford University Press, 1991)
  Including contributions from such notable scholars as David Gauthier, Noel Malcolm, D.D. Raphael, and Richard Tuck, this volume offers a variety of views on central aspects of Hobbes’s life and work, including the importance of his political theory and… More

• “A Critique of Hobbes’s Critique of Biblical and Natural Religion in Leviathan”

  - Thomas L. Pangle, Jewish Political Studies Review, 4:2 (Fall 1992): 25-57
  Abstract: This essay is a critical exposition of Thomas Hobbes’s atheism, focusing on the natural-scientific and theological foundations of his philosophy.

• An Intellectual History of Liberalism

  - Pierre Manent (Rebecca Balinski, trans., Princeton University Press, 1996)
  Highlighting the social tensions that confront the liberal tradition, Pierre Manent draws a portrait of what we, citizens of modern liberal democracies, have become. For Manent, a discussion of liberalism encompasses the foundations of modern society, its… More

• The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West

  - Mark Lilla (Knopf, 2007)
  Lilla argues that, due to a crisis in Western Christendom nearly five hundred years ago, a novel intellectual challenge to political theology arose in Europe. By portraying religion as an expression of human nature, not a divine gift, modern Western thinkers… More

• The Allegiance of Thomas Hobbes

  - Jeffrey R. Collins (Oxford University Press, 2008)
  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… More

• “Hobbes’ Fearful Wisdom”

  - Michael Gillespie, in The Theological Origins of Modernity (Chicago University Press, 2009), pp. 207-254
  In this, the seventh chapter of his book-length study of the origins of modernity, Gillespie considers the place of Hobbes in the making (and crisis) of modernity and the Enlightenment.