Confronting Leviathan: A History of Ideas (Hardback) - David Runciman

A primer on political theory from bestselling author and host of Talking Politics David Runciman

Based on the History Of Ideas podcast series by Talking Politics host David Runciman, A History of Ideas explores some of the most important thinkers and prominent ideas lying behind modern politics - from Hobbes to Gandhi, from democracy to patriarchy, and from revolution to lock down. While explaining the most important and often-cited ideas of thinkers such as Constant, De Tocqueville, Marx and Engels, Hayek, MacKinnon and Fukuyama, David Runciman shows how crises - revolutions, wars, depressions, pandemics - generated these new ways of political thinking. This is a history of ideas to help make sense of what's happening today.

About the Author

David Runciman is Professor of Politics at Cambridge University and the former Head of the Department of Politics and International Studies. He is the author of six previous books, including Where Power Stops, How Democracy Ends (Profile), Political Hypocrisy, The Confidence Trap and Politics (for the Ideas in Profile series). He writes regularly about politics for the London Review of Books and hosts the widely acclaimed weekly podcast Talking Politics.