Major Works

• Two Treatises of Government

  - Recommended edition: Two Treatises of Government, ed. Peter Laslett (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988).
  Excerpt: Thou hast here the beginning and end of a discourse concerning government; what fate has otherwise disposed of the papers that should have filled up the middle, and were more than all the rest, it is not worth while to tell thee. These, which… More

Other Works

• An Essay on the Poor Law

  - Recommended edition: Political Essays, ed. Mark Goldie (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 182- 198.
  Excerpt: If the cause of this evil be well looked into, we humbly conceive it will be found to have proceeded neither from scarcity of provisions, nor from want of employment for the poor, since the goodness of God has blessed these times with plenty, no less… More

Commentary

• “On the Political Character of Property in Locke”

  - Harvey Mansfield, “On the Political Character of Property in Locke,” in Powers, Possessions and Freedom: Essays in Honour of C.B. MacPherson. Ed. A. Kontos (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979), 23-38.
  Excerpt: It is a curious fact that Marx, who elaborated the labor theory of value, had little to say of Locke, who originated it. Only in the manuscript called Theories of Surplus Value does he comment on Locke’s theory…”Locke’s view… More

• A Discourse on Property: John Locke and His Adversaries

  - James Tully, A Discourse on Property: John Locke and His Adversaries (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 1980).
  John Locke’s theory of property is perhaps the most distinctive and the most influential aspect of his political theory. In this book James Tully uses an hermeneutical and analytical approach to offer a revolutionary revision of early modern theories of… More

• Property and Political Theory

  - Alan Ryan, Property and Political Theory (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985).
  A philosophical analysis (not a history of ideas) of the relationship between work and property among a number of key western thinkers, concentrating upon how property is justified or criticized, and how it has been related to notions of citizenship. Ryan… More

• “John Locke”

  - Robert Goldwin, "John Locke" in History of Political Philosophy, eds. Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987).
  Excerpt: The theme of human freedom characterizes those of Locke’s works which are most important for an understanding of his political thought: in A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689), he wrote of religious freedom; in the Two Treatises of Government… More

• The Human Condition

  - Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958).
  A work of striking originality bursting with unexpected insights, The Human Condition is in many respects more relevant now than when it first appeared in 1958. In her study of the state of modern humanity, Hannah Arendt considers humankind from the… More

• The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke

  - C.B. MacPherson, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962).
  This seminal work by political philosopher C.B. Macpherson was first published by the Clarendon Press in 1962, and remains of key importance to the study of liberal-democratic theory half-a-century later. In it, Macpherson argues that the chief difficulty of… More

Multimedia

• Steven Smith: Lectures on the Second Treatise

  - Steven Smith, "Introduction to Political Philosophy," Yale Open Courses, Autumn 2006.
  Professor Steven Smith’s lectures on Locke’s Second Treatise from Yale’s “Introduction to Political Philosophy,” available through Yale Open Courses. Autumn 2006. Constitutional Government: Locke, Second Treatise (1-5)… More