Leviathan: Or the Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil (Audiobook)

from RandyStafford

My reactions to reading this book in 1994. It took almost two months to plow through this book, but I'm not sorry I did. Like most "great books", the things I heard about it were rather simplistic and one-faceted. The actual book was more complex than I expected. I expected a detailed argument in...

from Vercingetorix

Not to sound too flippant, but I think this book is probably worth reading solely for exceprts such as these: "The Papacy, is no other, than the Ghost of the deceased Romane Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof..." "The Ecclesiastiques are the Spirituall men, and Ghostly Fathers. The Fa...

from Donovan

Actually, Hobbes' words were 'nasty, brutish, and short.' Leviathan is a great book, but what I find amazing about it is not Hobbes' insights into humans or politics-the continuation of our reliance upon Hobbes to explain state power seems much more the point. Hobbes was one of the first to under...

from axelp

"He that is to govern a whole Nation, must read in himself, not this, or that particular man; but Man-kind: which though it be hard to do, harder than to learn any Language, or Science; yet when I shall have set down my own reading orderly, and perspicuously, the pains left another, will be onely...

from axelp

"He that is to govern a whole Nation, must read in himself, not this, or that particular man; but Man-kind: which though it be hard to do, harder than to learn any Language, or Science; yet when I shall have set down my own reading orderly, and perspicuously, the pains left another, will be onely...