Pensées

Machiavelli's short, blunt manual on how power is won and kept, the book that turned his name into an adjective. Our own Project Aldus edition, with an introduction to his life in Renaissance Florence.

Niccolò Machiavelli

The other Machiavelli: a long reflection on the Roman Republic and why free states rise and fall. Read it next to The Prince to see the whole picture. Ninian Hill Thomson's translation.

Niccolò Machiavelli

The book that named the genre. More describes an island commonwealth with no private property and uses it to hold a mirror to the Europe of his day.

Thomas More

Descartes tells how he decided to doubt everything and rebuild knowledge from a single certainty: I think, therefore I am. A short, personal book that launched modern philosophy.

René Descartes

Hobbes pictures life without government as nasty, brutish and short, and argues for a strong sovereign to escape it. The complete text in a clean modern layout.

Thomas Hobbes