The Vindiciae, contra tyrannos was the most infamous of the monarchomach treatises produced during the French wars of religion. This edition presents the first complete and accurate English translation of the work, a comprehensive apparatus, and an introduction that provides the first detailed analysis of the argument and also reconsiders the much-disputed question of authorship. It will be of interest to a wide range of scholars working on the history of political thought and early modern Europe.

This account of the basic theme of Vico's mature philosophy explores the question of whether philosophical theories can ever be more than an intellectual expression of the underlying beliefs of an age. The first complete English translation of the 1725 text, Vico's The First New Science ia now accessible to a broad, new readership. It is accompanied by a glossary, bibliography, chronology of Vico's life and expository introduction.

This volume makes available one of the central texts in the development of utilitarian tradition, in the authoritative 1977 edition prepared by Professors Burns and Hart as part of Bentham's Collected Works. Certain that history was on his side, Bentham sought to rid the world of the hideous mess wrought by legal obfuscation and confusion, and to transform politics into a rational, scientific activity, premised on the fundamental axiom that "it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong."

Georges Sorel's Reflections on Violence (1908) remains a controversial text to this day. It unashamedly advocates the use of violence as a means of putting an end to the corrupt politics of bourgeois democracy and of bringing down capitalism. It is both dangerous and fascinating, of enduring importance and interest to all those concerned about the nature of modern politics. This new student edition of Sorel's classic text is accompanied by notes, chronology, and bibliography, as well as a concise introduction to the context and content of this work.

John of Salisbury (c. 1115-1180) was the foremost political theorist of his age. He was trained in scholastic theology and philosophy at Paris, and his writings are invaluable for summarizing many of the metaphysical speculations of his time. The Policraticus is his main work, and is regarded as the first complete work of political theory to be written in the Latin Middle Ages. Cary Nederman's new edition and translation, currently the only version available in English, is primarily aimed at undergraduate students of the history of political thought and medieval history. His new translation...

De Cive (On the Citizen) is the first full exposition of the political thought of Thomas Hobbes, the greatest English political philosopher of all time. Professors Tuck and Silverthorne have undertaken the first complete translation since 1651, a rendition long thought (in error) to be at least sanctioned by Hobbes himself. On the Citizen is written in a clear, straightforward, expository style, offering students a more digestible account of Hobbes' political thought than even Leviathan itself. This new translation is itself a very significant scholarly event.

L.T. Hobhouse was the most sophisticated intellectual exponent of liberal social reform in the early years of the twentieth century. This edition of his classic Liberalism, which includes a number of his other contemporaneous writings, will be of interest to a broad range of students and scholars in politics and the history of political thought.

In his The Defender of the Peace, Marsilius of Padua offers a detailed analysis and explanation of human political communities, before going on to attack what he sees as the obstacles to peaceful human coexistence - principally the contemporary papacy. Annabel Brett's authoritative rendition of the Defensor Pacis is the first new translation in English for fifty years. Aimed at the student reader encountering this classic of medieval thought for the first time, this new edition is a scholarly and a pedagogic event of great importance to historians, political theorists, theologians and...

Presented in the popular Cambridge Texts format are three early Platonic dialogues in a new English translation by Tom Griffith that combines elegance, accuracy, freshness and fluency. Together they offer strikingly varied examples of Plato's critical encounter with the culture and politics of fifth and fourth century Athens. Nowhere does he engage more sharply and vigorously with the presuppositions of democracy. The Gorgias is a long and impassioned confrontation between Socrates and a succession of increasingly heated interlocutors about political rhetoric as an instrument of political...

The British Idealists made significant and lasting contributions to the social and political thought of the nineteenth century. They contributed to all the major debates of their day, including evolution, democracy, the role of the state, education and international relations, and are commonly acknowledged as the forerunners of modern communitarian theory. The introduction develops the themes illustrated in the writings of the British Idealists. This volume also contains a biography of the British Idealists that incorporates a guide to their principal works.