A reader's companion to The prince, Leviathan, and the Second treatise

Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Locke each sought a new foundation for political order.

This book serves as a reader's companion to Machiavelli's 'The Prince,' Hobbes's 'Leviathan,' and Locke's 'Second Treatise' written for graduate students and scholars seeking a fuller understanding of these classic texts.

How do these philosophers respond to perennial questions such as why anyone is ever obligated to obey a government and whether there are any limits to such an obligation.

In this book, Bookman begins by sorting out the hermeneutical controversy between textualists and contextualists, offers a chapter-by-chapter commentary on the texts punctuated by questions for the reader's reflection, and finally suggests a firmer foundation for a theory of political obligation than Hobbes's and Locke's consent theories.