European Political Thought 16001700 Author:W. M. Spellman The European seventeenth century saw the seeming resolution of two great conflicts: the nightmares of the Thirty Years War and the British civil wars, which established Catholicism as the dominant religion of Europe; and the growing power of the centralized state which enabled monarchs to hold the reins to even greater power at the cost of semi-... more »democratic institutions. This book studies all the great political theorists of the 17th century, dominated by Hobbes but including some of the lesser-known, occasional writers and pamphleteers. The book allows those interested in the thought of the period to understand the historical context and those studying the military and political events to understand their intellectual roots.« less