Synopses & Reviews
Acclaimed writer and historian Noel Malcolm presents his sensational discovery of a new work by Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679): a propaganda pamphlet on behalf of the Habsburg side in the Thirty Years' War, translated by Hobbes from a Latin original. Malcolm's book explores a fascinating episode in seventeenth-century history, illuminating both the practice of early modern propaganda and the theory of "reason of state".
About the Author
Noel Malcolm is a General Editor of the
Clarendon Edition of the Works of Thomas Hobbes. He has been a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, Foreign Editor of
The Spectator, and political columnist of the
Daily Telegraph. He left journalism in 1995 in order to concentrate on scholarly research and writing. Since then he has been a Visiting Fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford, a Visiting Lecturer at Harvard University, and Carlyle Lecturer at Oxford University. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2001.
Table of Contents
Preface
A Note on Dates and Transcriptions
1. Hobbes's Early Career
2. The Translation: Authorship, Date, and Style
3. The 'Secretissima instructio' Texts
4. The Distribution of the Altera secretissima instructio in England
5. Palatine Politics: Cavendish, Mansfield, and Hobbes
6. 'Reason of State' and Hobbes
Hobbes's translation of Altera secretissima instructio
Altera secretissima instructio
List of Manuscripts
Bibliography