Tocqueville examines the structures, institution and operation of democracy, and analyzes the lessons that Europe could learn from American successes and failures. It continues to be an influential text on both sides of the Atlantic, especially in the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe.

The Leviathan is the vast unity of the State. But the resurgence of interest in Leviathan is due less to its answers than its methods. This book intends to see politics as a science capable of the same axiomatic approach as geometry. It argues from first principles to human nature to politics.

In this translated classic, Rousseau argues for the preservation of individual freedom in political society. He says that we can only be free under the law by voluntarily embracing that law as our own. Hence, being free in society requires each of us to subjugate all our desires to the collective good, the general will.

A revised version of Peter Lasletta -- s acclaimed Two Treatises of Government, widely recognised as a classic text in the history of ideas.

For this treatise on statecraft the author drew upon his own experience of office under the turbulent Florentine republic, rejecting traditional values of political theory and recognizing the complicated, transient nature of political life.

Translated by Donald A. Cress.