Book review: Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Rousseau

This volume presents lucid and insightful lectures on three great figures from the history of political thought, by John Plamenatz (1912-1975), a leading political philosopher of his time. He aimed to explore a range of themes in the political thought of Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Rousseau, at substantially greater length and depth than in his famous work of 1961, Man and Society. The lectures exemplify Plamenatz’s view that repeated engagement with the texts of canonical thinkers can substantially enrich and expand our capacity for political reflection, finds Mark Fisher, who also commends the editors for addressing important developments that have occurred in the study of these thinkers since the time of the lectures’ writing.