In this classic analysis, Leo Strauss pinpoints what is original and
innovative in the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes. He argues that
Hobbes's ideas arose not from tradition or science but from his own deep
knowledge and experience of human nature. Tracing the development of
Hobbes's moral doctrine from his early writings to his major work The
Leviathan, Strauss explains contradictions in the body of Hobbes's work
and discovers startling connections between Hobbes and the thought of
Plato, Thucydides, Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, and Hegel.