Leviathan Author:Thomas Hobbes Man, Power and the state are the subjects of Hobbes's great masterpiece of political theory. In Hobbes's world, the "Leviathan" is the symbol of the absolute centralized political authority which governs a teeming mass of petty and selfish individuals, whose security is maintained only by the sword of the monarch. Fear is the dominating passion... more » of man, driving him to submit to an all-powerful state to avoid a war of all against all. Hobbes's view of society is not a pleasant one. But, despite the many who would prefer to believe in the perfectibility of man, the ferocious totalitarianism of our own day is ample support for Hobbes's trenchant view of the body politic. Thus, Leviathan is as compelling a theoretical document today as it was when first penned over three hundred years ago.« less