Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are. The founding father of modern political philosophy, Thomas Hobbes, living in an era of horrific violence, saw human life as meaningless and cruel; here, he argues the only way to escape this brutality is for all to accept a social contract' that acknowledges the greater authority of a Sovereign leader.

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)was an English philosopher, whose famous 1651 book Leviathan established the agenda for nearly all subsequent Western political philosophy.

Although Hobbes is today best remembered for his work on political philosophy, he contributed to a diverse array of fields, including history, geometry, theology, ethics, general philosophy, and what would now be called political science. Additionally, Hobbes' account of human nature as self-interested cooperation has proved to be an enduring theory in the field of philosophical anthropology.

托馬斯·霍布斯（Thomas Hobbes，1588年4月5日－1679年12月4日），是英國的政治哲學傢，他在1651年所著的的《利維坦》 替之後所有的西方政治哲學發展奠定根基。

雖然霍布斯最知名的是政治哲學的著作，但他也有許多其他主題的著作，包括瞭歷史、幾何學、倫理學、和在現代被稱為政治學的哲學。除此之外，霍布斯認為人性的行為都是齣於自私的，這也成為哲學人類學研究的重要理論。