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Leviathan (Book)

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Leviathan (book)

Leviathan or The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil — commonly called simply Leviathan — is a book written by Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) and published in 1651. Its name derives from the biblical Leviathan. The work concerns the structure of society and legitimate government, and is regarded as one of the earliest and most influential examples of social contract theory. The publisher was Andrew Crooke, partner in Andrew Crooke and William Cooke. Leviathan ranks high as a classical western work on statecraft comparable to Machiavelli's The Prince and is one of a number of related works incident upon the crisis of the English state framework of the time.

In Leviathan, which was written during the English Civil War (1642–1651), Hobbes argues for a social contract and rule by an absolute sovereign. He wrote that chaos or civil war – situations identified with a state of nature and the famous motto Bellum omnium contra omnes ("the war of all against all") – could only be averted by strong central government.

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