Books in the Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought series

In seventeenth-century England, patriarchalist thinking shaped English ideas not only about the family but also about society and the state. Many thinkers argued that the state should be seen as a family, and that the king held the powers of a father over his subjects. The classic texts of patriarchal political thinking were written by Sir Robert Filmer (1588-1653), one of the most acute defenders of absolute monarchy. In addition to presenting his own patriarchalist theory, Filmer's works contain incisive attacks on democratic thinking and on the notion that political obligation stems from a contract between ruler and ruled. His political works are here edited from the original manuscript and printed sources, with an introduction which locates Filmer's ideas in their historical and ideological contexts. These texts - to which John Locke replied in his influential Two Treatises of Government - provide highly important documents for the understanding of political and social ideas at a decisive stage in the development of English attitudes.

James VI and I united the crowns of England and Scotland. His books are fundamental sources of the principles which underlay the union. In particular, his Basilikon Doron was a best-seller in England and circulated widely on the Continent. Among the most important and influential British writings of their period, the king's works shed light on the political climate of Shakespeare's England and the intellectual background to the civil wars which afflicted Britain in the mid-seventeenth century. James' political philosophy was a moderated absolutism, with an emphasis on the monarch's duty to rule according to law and the public good. Locke quoted his speech to parliament of 1610 approvingly, and Hobbes likewise praised 'our most wise king'. This edition is the first to draw on all the early texts of James' books, with an introduction setting them in their historical context.

This is the revised version of Peter Laslett's acclaimed edition of Two Treatises of Government, which is widely recognised as one of the classic pieces of recent scholarship in the history of ideas, read and used by students of political theory throughout the world. This 1988 edition revises Dr Laslett's second edition (1970) and includes an updated bibliography, a guide to further reading and a fully reset and revised introduction which surveys advances in Locke scholarship since publication of the second edition. In the introduction, Dr Laslett shows that the Two Treatises were not a rationalisation of the events of 1688 but rather a call for a revolution yet to come.

The Education of a Christian Prince is a new student edition of Erasmus's crucial treatise on political theory. It contains a new, excerpted translation from his Panegyric, making it possible for the first time to compare two works which Erasmus himself regarded as closely related. The Education of a Christian Prince was published in 1516 and dedicated to Prince Charles, the future Emperor Charles V, and is one of the most influential books of the 'advice-to-princes' published in the Renaissance era. It is a strongly pacifist work in which Erasmus sought to ensure that the prince governed justly and benevolently. The importance of Erasmus's work lies in his emphasis on virtuous conduct as the backbone of the polity, an argument which has influenced political writing up to the present time. This edition also includes an original introduction, a chronology of the life and work of Erasmus, and a comprehensive guide to further reading.