Leviathan (Penguin Classics) by Thomas Hobbes Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Our Price: $5.57 You Save: $5.43 (49%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $3.95 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Leviathan (Penguin Classics)
Book Review: Hobbes Gives Politics a Form
Summary: 5 Stars
I first read Hobbes Leviathan in a college history of political thought class. While Hobbes' paragraph-long-sentences can be so exhausting that you occassionally need to come up for air, his analogy of government as human in form but beastly in nature - thus Leviathan - provided for me a more lucid understanding of government. Except for the fact that he fails to tackle the existence or the role of a Higher Power, Hobbes' Leviathan is thorough and intriguing. Reading this historical piece is essential for anyone considering pursuing public policy or politics as a career.
Book Review: PROMETHEUS edition is only first half.
Summary: 1 Stars
Like most books, Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan is divided into chapters. But it is also divided into four "Parts." The Prometheus edition (not to be confused with the Penguin edition) includes only the first two parts, though they sell it as if it were the entire book instead of only the first half. Any other edition would be better than this. If you want a good edition, you could go with the Hackett edition, edited by Edwin Curley, modernized and with the important variants (translated into English, of course) from the Latin edition of the Leviathan published during Hobbes' lifetime. A good edition that is not modernized is the Cambridge edition edited by Richard Tuck. (Having an editor does NOT necessarily mean that the text has been reduced; they often serve to rid the text of previous publishing typographical errors.) Which of these you should get will depend upon two things: Whether you are interested in the variants from the Latin edition, and whether you are comfortable reading something written in the 1600's. For most people, probably the modernized Hackett edition would be best, as many people have difficulty with 17th century English. But if you want Hobbes' exact words, I recommend the Cambridge edition. Whenever buying classic texts, which edition you buy can be extremely important, as the dreadful Prometheus edition demonstrates.
Book Review: definitive edition of this work
Summary: 5 Stars
Leviathan is a the most exiting work of political philosophy I have ever read. You may disagree with it, but you should read it anyway and recognize its significance in the history of ideas.This edition is a good one. Its pages are thin enough for ink to bleed through, but the text itself is definitive and its printing is based on editions from Hobbes' lifetime. Contrary to a prior reader review, this edition DOES have parts three and four, although rarely do those sections get read anymore (the interesting things are in one and two).
Book Review: Leviathan of Great Book in Philosophy series
Summary: 5 Stars
Hobbes' Leviathan is a great work of literature and political philosophy, but unless you need it in its original, seventeenth century dialect, the edition published by Great Books in Philosophy series by Prometheus Books is not recommended. The language is very difficult to comprehend in this edition and there are no notes to help with interpretation. Five stars for Hobbes, but one star for this edition.Book Review: Hated it.
Summary: 1 Stars
Christian rigidity and stodginess and "the letter of the law must be obeyed" at its finest. An excellent exposition on the logical consequences of deeply distrusting human beings. To be more specific: Hobbes' key assumption, that humans in a state of nature are uncontrolled brutes, is not only contradicted by all sorts of anthropological evidence; it's a projection that we Westerners like to place over aboriginal peoples in order to justify colonizing them.
Read Camus' THE PLAGUE instead, where Tarrou refers to a Hobbesian bureaucrat as "Public Enemy Number One."