‘Leviathan’ is an ambitious and highly original work of political philosophy. Written by Thomas Hobbes during a time of Civil War, it argues that sovereign rule is the most stable form of government. Since its first publication in 1651, Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan has been recognised as one of the most compelling, and most controversial, works of political philosophy written in English. Claiming that man's essential nature is competitive and selfish, Hobbes formulates the case for a powerful sovereign or “Leviathan” to enforce peace and the law, substituting security for the anarchic freedom he believed human beings would otherwise experience. This worldview shocked many of Hobbes's contemporaries, and his work was publicly burnt for sedition and blasphemy when it was first published.
Hobbes presents us with a portrait of politics which depicts how a state that is made up of the unified body of all its citizens will be powerful, fruitful, protective of each of its members, and free from internal violence.