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who wrote leviathan

Leviathan was written by the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes.

Quick Scoop

  • Leviathan; or, The Matter, Forme and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil is a 1651 work of political philosophy.
  • It is Hobbes’s most famous book and a foundational text of modern social contract theory.

Why Leviathan Matters

  • The book argues that, to escape a violent “state of nature,” people create a powerful sovereign (the “Leviathan”) through a social contract.
  • It has influenced later political thought on authority, the state, and individual security up to the present day.

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