Summary
Published in 1651, Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan is one of the most influential works in Western political thought—a bold, rigorous attempt to explain the nature of human society, government, and authority from the ground up.
Writing during the chaos of the English Civil War, Hobbes argues that humans in their natural state are governed by self-interest, competition, and fear.
Without a central authority to keep order, life becomes, in his famously bleak phrase, "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
To escape this violent “state of nature,” individuals must form a social contract, surrendering certain freedoms to a sovereign power—a "Leviathan", either a monarch or governing body—with absolute authority to ensure peace and security. This central authority, Hobbes contends, must be indivisible, undivided, and above all, obeyed.
But Leviathan is more than just a theory of government—it’s also a work of philosophy, theology, psychology, and ethics.
Hobbes challenges the divine right of kings, questions religious authority, and grounds his entire argument in materialism and rationalism, rejecting traditional Aristotelian and scholastic views of the world.