Life Lessons from Hobbes

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Thomas Hobbes is best known for his greatly influential work on political philosophy. Born in 1588 in Wiltshire, England, his masterwork Leviathan established the foundation for most of Western political philosophy. He famously developed social contract theory, and controversially used it to support absolute power for the sovereign. Here you will find extracts from his greatest works. The Life Lessons series from The School of Life takes a great thinker and highlights those ideas most relevant to ordinary everyday dilemmas. These books emphasise ways in which wise voices from the past have urgently important and inspiring things to tell us. This book is introduced and edited by Hannah Dawson, Senior Lecturer in the History faculty of New College of the Humanities, London.

Reviews

[Life Lessons From Hobbes is] the best of this bunch ... trenchantly confronting contemporary political problems ... there is a good deal to be learned from these little primers * Observer *
thoroughly welcoming and approachable ... [an] invigorating essay on Hobbes ... If the six books in the Life Lessons series can teach even a few readers to pay passionate heed to the world - to notice things - they will have been an unquestionable success -- John Banville * Prospect *
A new series of books from Alain de Botton's School of Life does for Hobbes, Freud, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Byron and Bergson what de Botton's books have done for classical philosophers and Proust. They are short, snappy reads, reminiscent of Maria Popova's Brain Pickings blog - aphoristic digests from history's great minds * New Statesman *
Hannah Dawson is especially good on why Hobbes's theories on the meaning of freedom are so relevant * Evening Standard *
I was ... completely enchanted by Hannah Dawson's fiercely brilliant little book, Life Lessons from Hobbes (Macmillan). Her lyrical, clear-eyed prose made me shake off many of my erroneous assumptions about the "Monster of Malmesbury" - and envy Dawson's great facility with language -- Suzannah Lipscomb * History Today *

Author Bio

Hannah Dawson holds a joint appointment in the Schools of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences and of History and Classics at the University of Edinburgh. Before this she held a Junior Research Fellowship at Queen's College, Cambridge, where she was also Director of Studies in Philosophy. She has published several books and articles for journals.