Leviathan

The "Key Issues" series aims to make available the contemporary responses that met important books and debates on their first appearance. These take the form of journal articles, book extracts, public letters, sermons and pamphlets which provides an insight into the historical relevance and the social and political context in which a publication or particular topic emerged. Each volume brings together bring together some of the key responses to the works. Hobbes's "Leviathan" first appeared in 1651. The scandal that first attracted attention was its advocacy of unequivocal materialism with its implication of atheism. The second was its total rejection of the traditional justification for the exercise of political power, namely the authority of kingship ordained by a Deity. Third, in its apparently self-centred hedonism it was seen as rejecting all traditional ethical codes. In this collection of contemporary responses to "Leviathan", attention is focused on it critics - Hobbes had virtually no defenders - who attacked his moral, political and religious ideas in a series of pamphlets and short books.