Reason of State, Propaganda, and the Thirty Years' War

Reviews / Votes

The bringing to light of a previously-unknown work by a major writer or thinker is always a cause of excitement, and even more so when the author in question is a figure of the stature of Hobbes. Noel Malcolm's discovery amongst the papers of the first Earl of Newcastle of an imcomplete manuscript translation, unmistakably in Hobbes' handwriting, of an inflammatory European political pamphlet of the 1620s, is thus a tantalising and provocative event...Most professional scholars...will close this slim volume with mingled emotions of admiration and despair: admiration at the reach, precision and judgement of Malcolm's scholarship, despair over whether they could themselves emulate it. * David Womersley, Social Affairs Unit Web Review * Noel Malcolm's book consists of six stage-setting chapters, Hobbes's English translation of a manuscript version of a pamphlet written in Latin during the Thirty Years' War, and the Latin text of the published version. Malcolm's chapters are a tour de force of scholarship...Malcolm's careful, erudite edition of the translation and his discussion of the minutiae of the Thirty Years' War must be lauded. * A. P. Martinich, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews * This book...offers what good history should: the recovery of the past, in all of its forgotten complexity and detail. In a day when most academic writing achieves only clever hermeneutics, reading Noel Malcolm is a bracing pleasure. * Times Literary Supplement *