1588-1679

" ... [argues] that [the] current crisis in government is nothing less than the fourth radical transition in the history of the nation-state ... The West has led these revolutions, but [is] now ... in the midst of a fourth revolution, and it is Western government that is in danger of being left behind ... Drives home a powerful argument: that countries' success depends overwhelmingly on their ability to reinvent the state. And that much of the West--and particularly the United States--is failing badly in its task. China is making rapid progress with government reform at the same time as America is falling badly behind ... "--Publisher.

Offers a comprehensive analysis of Thomas Hobbes' writings about philosophy, religion, and the law, and their influence on his masterwork, "Leviathan".

The general division of man's natural faculties -- the cause of sense -- of imagination and the kinds thereof -- of the several kinds of discursion of the mind -- of names, reasoning, and discourse of the tongue -- of a knowledge, opinion, and relief -- of delight and pain/good and eveil -- of the pleasurers of the senses/of honour -- of the passions of the mind -- of the difference between men in these discerning faculty and the cause. -- what imaginations and passions men have, at the names of things supernatural -- how by deliberation from passions proceed men's actions -- how by language men work upon each other's minds -- of the estate and right of nature -- of the divesting natural right by gift and covenant -- some of the laws of nature -- other laws of nature -- a confirmation of the same out of the word of God -- of the necessity and definition of a body politic -- of the requisites to the constitution of a commonwealth -- of the three sorts of commonwealth -- of the power of masters -- of the power of fathers, and of patrimonial kingdom -- the incommodities of several sorts of government compared -- that subjects are not bound to follow their private judgments in controversies of religion -- that subjects are not bound to follow the judgment of any authorities in controversies of religion which is not dependent on the sovereign power -- of the causes of rebellion -- of the duty of them that have sovereign power -- of the nature and kinds of laws.

Describes the Enlightenment period in Europe and England during the seventeenth century and the works of British philosopher Thomas Hobbes including "Elements of Law, Nature, and Politic" and "Leviathan, " and examines the Protestant Reformation and challenges to the crow and English society during the Age of Reason.