History and Modernity in the Thought of Thomas Hobbes

Download or read book History and Modernity in the Thought of Thomas Hobbes written by Robert Kraynak and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-15 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Robert Kraynak offers a radical reinterpretation of the political thought of Thomas Hobbes and a new assessment of Hobbes's contribution to the origins and problems of modernity. The author argues that it is necessary to examine a neglected facet of Hobbes's thought—his writings on history, especially Behemoth, his lengthy study of the English Civil War. Through a close reading of these works, Kraynak shows how Hobbes came to consider the possibility of a new kind of political science, one that is supremely confident of the power of critical reason to overcome the authorities of the past to build a new form of civilization yet uncertain about reason's foundations.