Visions of Politics, Volume III: Hobbes and Civil Science

Visions of Politics #3

by Quentin Skinner

The third of three volumes of essays by Quentin Skinner, one of the world's leading intellectual historians. This collection includes some of his most important essays on Thomas Hobbes, each of which has been carefully revised for publication in this form. In a series of writings spanning the past four decades Professor Skinner examines, with his customary perspicuity, the evolution and character of Hobbes's political thought. An indispensable work in its own right, this volume also serves as a demonstration of those methodological theories propounded in Volume I, and as an appositional commentary on the Renaissance values of civic virtue treated in Volume II. All of Professor Skinner's work is characterised by philosophical power, limpid clarity, and elegance of exposition; these essays, many of which are now recognised classics, provide a fascinating and convenient digest of the development of his thought. Professer Skinner has been awarded the Balzan Prize Life Time Achievement Award for Political Thought, History and Theory. Full details of this award can be found at

Genres: Politics, History, Philosophy, Political Science

404 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Educated at Caius College, Cambridge, where he was elected to a Fellowship upon obtaining a double-starred first in History, Quentin Skinner accepted, however, a teaching Fellowship at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he taught until 2008, except for four years in the 1970s spent at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. In 1978 he was appointed to the chair of Political Science at Cambridge University, and subsequently regarded as one of the two principal members (along with J.G.A. Pocock) of the influential 'Cambridge School' of the history of political thought, best known for its attention to the 'languages' of political thought.

Skinner's primary interest in the 1970s and 1980s was the modern idea of the state, which resulted in two of his most highly regarded works, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought: Volume I: The Renaissance and The Foundations of Modern Political Thought: Volume II: The Age of Reformation.